Petition in favor of the St. Francis Terrier
I am asking for your support with this petition to "Save the St. Francis Terrier" from being banned. I am not sure if you are aware of the current situation in Miami, FL. Miami has a pre-emptive no-BSL law but Miami/Dade County was exempted 13 years ago when the law went into effect. The breed restrictions were rarely, if ever, enforced until early April 2002. Due to an irresponsible pet owner there was a biting incident and because it involved a St. Francis Terrier, ( the officials, in "MIAMI", are still calling this breed by a slang term of "pit bull") the Miami AC is now rigorously enforcing their statutes.

We have heard from people who have been told to either put their pets down, move, or face fines of $500/day until they comply with this ordinance. This has stirred a great panic with pet owners who dearly love their St. Francis Terriers, as they have been a part of their family for years!

This ordinance is outrageous, and scary, because innocent dogs are being destroyed left and right -- all due to ignorance about this breed. And the media hype! Both the media and the city officials are being reckless with these dogs' lives. The media just wants to sell head lines and the City Officials are acting like they are really doing something to prevent a dog bite incident.
It is the responsibility of each pet owner to ensure there are no dog bite incidents.

Here are the Facts:
"Statistics have shown that people have been bitten much more often by a Poodle, Schnauzer or Cocker Spaniel"-- but these reports do not make head lines OR sell newspapers. The media is as much to blame as the ignorance of these officials in Miami, FL for the great injustice that has been thrust upon this wonderful breed of dog undeserving of this type of treatment!

Every respective pet owner is responsible for what their pets do. Singling out and "banning" a particular breed of dog does nothing to make pet owners more responsible or accountable. This ordinance has got to be overturned to restore justice to this wonderful breed of dog.

Any dog bite incident should be investigated and all the information accurately collected before making any decisions about the pet or the pet owner. In other words, each situation should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and judged strictly on those merits.

What Really Needs to be Done
This ordinance has got to be overturned to restore justice to this wonderful breed.

What there needs to be is an ordinance in every City of every State in the U.S. that punishes anyone for animal abuse--

This includes: physical abuse or neglect, stealing another pet owner's pet and/or abusing it or killing it. These crimes should be punishable not only with a stiff fine but to also incarcerate anyone for any of these such acts, even once.

They should be incarcerated for an indefinite period, depending upon the severity of the act/s and without the possibility of parole in extreme cases. There should be only a one strike and you're fined and incarcerated ordinance.

We feel that being tough on crimes inflicted on any pet is abominable and should not be any more condoned than if these acts were committed upon a person--adult or child.

Together-only with your help can we accomplish what is equitable for our wonderful pets who give us such unconditional love. We owe it to them to protect them from these abuses and injustices -- Won't you please help us help this wonderful breed. By helping them you will be helping pets everywhere. We need to set a precedence NOW!

Please feel free to circulate your own petition - to save the St. Francis Terriers (aka "pit bull" - slang term) from being banned in Florida. All you need is lined paper with the date, persons name, address, phone number, signature and collect as many signatures as possible. Our goal is to collect 10,000 signatures ASAP.

OR

Just email us a short paragraph on saving the St. Francis Terrier
--NOT to ban them --

Email your input to:
Info@petliterate.com

Note: If you have a list of people who also want to help save the St. Francis Terrier from this injustice, please just put as many people on the from line of your email (with their permission) and submit it to us at:

Info@petliterate.com

We hope to gather many, many signatures. We are asking each person to collect a minimum of 3 pages of signatures and MAIL these to:

Pet Literate, P.O. Box 374, Manhattan Beach, CA 90267-0374,
Attn: J.D.,/ Re: Petition For Saint Francis Terriers

Please make copies for yourself and put your name at the very top of the list so we know who collected these signatures - send in originals ONLY - Thank you!

If you cannot physically collect signatures, please just route an email to as many people for their support by asking them to do the same. All anyone needs to do is email us that they do not want them to Ban the St. Francis Terrier, at:

Info@petliterate.com
Subject: Not to ban the St. Francis Terrier

Note: Make sure to put in the body of the email what you are emailing about -- Not to Ban the St. Francis Terrier -
(don't just put in the subject line, but in the body of the email/s)

Thank You!

Remember, you can either mail us the original petition of
Signatures OR email replies from a list of people in support of
"NOT banning" the St. Francis Terrier

(For mail ins: Any number of pages of signatures -- 3 pages each would be great, but whatever you can gather quickly will definitely help save this breed and owners from losing their beloved dogs needlessly)