Woman Sues SPCA Over Seizure of Dog

2/23/2009

SPCA Cincinnati faces a lawsuit after a woman claims the organization took her dog believing it was a Pit Bull. The dog died while in the care of the SPCA and the woman claims her dog was an American Bulldog-- *not* a Pit Bull.

Local 12 reporter Angela Ingram spoke this both parties Sunday evening and says the organization claims it followed city rules when workers seized the dog. The SPCA says the city bans Pit Bulls and classifies them as vicious. And workers have the power to determine whether a dog is a Pit Bull.

Maegan Sizemore owns American Bulldogs-- and operates a rescue for the breed. "We do do a lot of dogs we pull from high-kill shelters where otherwise they wouldn't have a chance to be placed in a home."

Sizemore handles dozens of Pit Bulls and Bulldogs. She says experienced workers can tell the difference. "They usually have rounder heads or squared off heads whereas pit bulls have more triangular shaped heads. Also another a huge way to tell the difference is their weight."

SPCA workers are trained to distinguish between the breeds-- and ID a Pit Bull mix. "The city of Cincinnati's ordinance relative to Pit Bulls allows an SPCA officer to make that judgment."

But, now the organization finds itself in the midst of a lawsuit because an unnamed dog owner says workers mistakenly identified her dog as a Pit Bull. "Our officers deal with pitbulls every single day and it gets to be kind of a 'you know one when you see one' type of thing."

The dog died in the care of the SPCA of parvovirus. The organization says it followed the rules because the worker believed it was an illegal breed. Sizemore says those rules wouldn't be necessary if some people didn't train Pit Bulls to be dangerous. "I think that American Pit Bull Terriers, Staffordshire Terriers, and American Bulldogs included are usually given a bad name unfortunately."

After the dog died, the owner was not notified. Andy Mahlman says that should not have happened, and the normal procedure is to notify an owner when a animal in the SPCA's care dies.

The dog's owner claims she was not allowed to see her dog while the SPCA had custody of it. Mahlman says owners are allowed to visit seized dogs as long as they have an attorney present with them.

The owner was cited for having a Pit Bull within the city limits.