November 5th at the Kennewick City Council meeting, advocates of lifting the city's special requirements on pit bull dogs or other breeds deemed dangerous will be presenting arguments to the council.

The city currently has special rules and insurance requirements for people who own one of the dogs, including pit bulls, that are in the city's list of dangerous breeds. New state laws will go into effect January 1 2020, and Kennewick has until then to either give an exemption to breeds who have passed the AKC Canine and Good Citizenship test, or they could remove the special requirements completely.

Supporters presented information to the council, a list of all reported dog bites in Kennewick between 2014 and 2018. The city records indicate of the 177 reported bite incidents, 18 were pit bulls. While a wide variety of dogs were on the list, the highest number of incidents involved chihuahuas.

Pit bull advocates are inviting people to attend the Nov. 5th meeting and urge the council to drop the special legislation and requirements for these so-called dangerous breeds. Those in favor of keeping the restrictions say while the pit bull cases are low, they claim these dogs tend to inflict more damage to those they bite than most dogs.

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