By Bill Brubaker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The much-maligned pit bull scored a rare victory yesterday when a judge ruled that the Loudoun County Animal Shelter may not euthanize any dog based solely on its breed.

But the preliminary injunction issued by Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Herman A. Whisenant Jr. does not alter the fate of abandoned pit bulls that the shelter determines to be dangerous.

Yesterday's ruling was triggered by a lawsuit brought by a Sterling man who alleged he was thwarted in his efforts to adopt a pit bull from the shelter this summer.

Ronald Litz, who was joined in the lawsuit by a Norfolk-based animal rescue group, claimed that Loudoun's decades-old policy -- singling out pit bulls as animals that cannot be adopted at the shelter because they are inherently dangerous -- is illegal under state law.

Loudoun officials asserted that the policy is not illegal and that, in any case, a revised policy being considered by county supervisors would allow adoptions of pit bulls that have been evaluated and cleared by animal-behavior specialists.

Montgomery, Fairfax and Prince William are among the counties in the Washington region that allow pit bull adoptions. Prince George's County bans pit bulls from homes unless they were acquired before 1997. Under a policy change implemented this summer, Loudoun officials said they have been transferring "adoptable" pit bulls to rescue groups and shelters in other jurisdictions. Pit bulls deemed to be dangerous -- a huge majority -- are euthanized.

Between July 1, 2006, and June 30 of this year, 56 pit bulls were euthanized, according to county records. An additional 38 were returned to their owners, and one was transferred to another facility.

At yesterday's hearing in Leesburg, an attorney for Litz and Animal Rescue of Tidewater asked Whisenant for a preliminary injunction that would bar the shelter from euthanizing any dog based on its breed.

"If not now, when?" said the attorney, Anthony F. Troy. "We believe there's a clear violation [of state law] that's going on, and it needs to be stopped."

Assistant County Attorney Milissa R. Spring told the court that no injunction was needed, because "currently pit bulls are not euthanized by the Loudoun County Animal Shelter based on their breed."

Thomas Koenig, the county's director of Animal Care and Control, suggested after the hearing that Whisenant's ruling will not change the way the shelter does business.

"We've been given an injunction to stop what we haven't been doing," he said.

Loudoun began taking steps to change its adoption policy last fall after Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R) issued a nonbinding opinion that publicly funded shelters should not euthanize dogs based solely on their breed.

The issue gained more prominence this summer after then-Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was indicted on federal charges of operating a dog-fighting ring involving dozens of pit bulls. He pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced in December.

Most of the pit bulls seized in a raid of Vick's property in southern Virginia have been evaluated and deemed to be adoptable.