But once he and Kiwi reached Denver, Anderson was shocked and disappointed to find that they couldn’t call the city their new home because of Denver’s pit bull ban.
"How could anyone be threatened by this dog?" Anderson wonders. However, the pit bull advocate has faced a history of obstacles in protecting his pit bulls owing to the enforcement of breed-specific legislation (BSL) that targets pit bull breeds in many cities across the country, including Denver.
Unable to risk losing Kiwi to the hands of Denver Animal Protection, Anderson found himself living just outside of town. Soon he was inspired to develop PitbullHero, a nonprofit research group that provides science-based evidence to counter stereotypes about pit bulls and works to alleviate breed-specific legislation against pit bulls across the country. Denver’s pit bull ban was repealed in 2020, but Colorado's third-largest city still prohibited them.
Enacted in 2005, Aurora’s pit bull ban has faced back-and-forth discourse between Aurora City Council and voters for years. In 2021, the council approved a removal of the ban without input from voters, resulting in a lawsuit from Aurora resident Matt Snider, who also ran for Colorado Senate District 27 in 2022.
In an email to Westword, Snider says his lawsuit “was never about dogs.” Instead, he “fought to protect the voter’s right to make this decision.” The Colorado Court of Appeals sided with Snider in 2023, reversing the council's decision. The case then went back to the 18th Judicial District Court, which decided that Aurora voters, not the city council, could overturn the city's pit bull ban. Question 3A subsequently landed on Aurora's ballot in 2024.
Over 61 percent of Aurora voters approved ending the pit bull ban. According to Anderson, this suggests that residents no longer view pit bulls as overly aggressive and snarling. Citing the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), Anderson asserts that there is no scientific or biological correlation between dog breeds and threat levels.
Historically, research on dog bites seems to show otherwise. A study conducted by DogsBite found that from 2005 to 2017, 66 percent of dog bite fatalities were by pit bulls.
While incident reports such as these are alarming, Anderson argues that they fail to account for the larger population size of pit bulls in comparison to other breeds such as German shepherds, Rottweilers and Jack Russell terriers, which are also cited with high numbers of attacks. According to DNA studies done by Embark Veterinary, American Pit Bull terriers are the most commonly identified breed in 21 states in the United States.
Studies on bite statistics can also muddy the waters, argues Anderson, who says that physical characteristics that define pit bulls are often applied to dogs of different breeds, increasing the perceived threat of pit bulls as a whole. According to Veterinary Journal, there was a 60 percent misidentification rate for pit bulls among polled shelter staff members.
“It's not because they're inherently more dangerous or more aggressive. It's because there just happens to be more of them,” Anderson says.
Media stigmatization against pit bulls is a contributing factor to BSL policies, he addss. In the ’80s, pit bulls were sensationalized as "mean guard dogs" because of the rise of pit bulls in dog fight arenas, making the breed appear more aggressive to prospective dog owners, says Anderson.
The triple threat of stigmatizing forces against pit bulls also floods animal shelters, already susceptible to overcrowding, with more dogs when BSLs are enforced, says Mary Sarah Fairweather, a former pit bull owner and the vice president of sheltering at the Denver Dumb Friends League.
When BSLs target pit bulls, families are discouraged from adopting them, which leads to a cycle of deterioration in health and behavioral challenges.
“Breed-specific legislation is often enforced under the guise of community safety, but really, any breed of dog can pose a danger to a community,” says Fairweather, who argues that proper training, socialization, love and affection are the real determinants of a dog’s threat level, not their biological makeup.
Following the overturning of Aurora’s pit bull ban, Fairweather hopes to see fewer pit bulls in shelters and less breed stigma in general. To combat the deep-rooted stigma against pit bulls, she encourages prospective dog owners to research different types of breeds before adopting them, which the Centers for Disease Control suggest is much more effective in eliminating dog attacks than BSLs.
But for now, prospective pit bull owners in Aurora are accepting the win.
“This means that families in Aurora don't have to worry about being forced to separate from their best friends just because of what they look like,” says Fairweather. “We're celebrating, and we're all breathing a little easier today."
