History

In mid-2005, a group of concerned professionals—representing animal health care, animal sheltering, and animal control organizations—set out to determine how best to keep Colorado’s communities safe from dangerous dogs. They created the Coalition for Living Safely with Dogs. The group saw the need for more comprehensive plans to prevent a statewide patchwork of dangerous dog laws and to make all communities safer from dangerous dogs of any size, shape, or breed.

The Coalition held a forum on March 8, 2006. The forum helped Coalition members gather knowledge about the effects of existing dangerous dog laws. It also underscored the gap in data, such as the number and types of dogs that attack animals and people, and the lack of information about the circumstances leading up to previous dog attacks (such as sex of the animal, intact or neutered, and human behaviors that preceded the attack). Most importantly, the forum got municipalities talking with each other and with the Coalition; municipal leaders asked for help in drafting ordinances, in providing accurate data to their constituents, and in providing more educational opportunities for law enforcement agencies and members of the community. Click here to view the Summary Report and here to view the Full Report.

Shortly after the forum, members of the Coalition began working with city council members and animal control officers in Lakewood to draft a tough, breed-neutral ordinance that gives city officials more power over dangerous dog owners. Towns like Parker, Longmont, Englewood, and Colorado Springs also opted not to institute breed-specific ordinances and have pledged instead to study broader reaching laws that help prevent potential attacks by dogs, regardless of breed. See the Lakewood and Englewood ordinances.

The Coalition found that what was missing in providing resources and information to municipalities was current and accurate data regarding dog bites. The most recent data on a national scale were bite statistics gathered by the Center for Disease Control in 2001. The Coalition consistently found that the need for data was key to making intelligent arguments about dangerous dog legislation and providing accurate information to political decision makers.

A subcommittee was formed to research how to come up with an instrument to accurately report bite statistics within the state of Colorado. The survey was finalized in late December of 2006; a pilot project took place from January through March of 2007; and on July 1, 2007 statewide data collection began. The coalition partnered with the Colorado Association of Animal Control Officers in collecting and inputting the data.

After a full year of collecting data (July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2008), the Animal Assistance Foundation (on behalf of the Coalition) contracted with Corona Research of Denver to do the analysis and to create a report on the findings.

The Coalition's second forum took place on February 26, 2009: Changing Human-Animal Behaviors to Create Safer Communities: Data, Ordinances, and Programs. Click here for agenda. The initial findings of the Dog-Bite Survey Data were presented at the forum. The final report and findings were released in May 2009. (Final Report; Key Findings and Recommended Action Steps)

The survey was revised in June 2008 and the data collection project is continuing.