“Targeting dogs by dog breed just makes no sense at all,” says Páraic Ó Súilleabháin, the study’s author. “A couple of times people had stopped us and said, ‘Oh, he looks like a pit bull,’ ” Collins says. But Northern Ireland’s ban (similar, but not the same, as the U.K.’s) targets only “the pit bull terrier” — a particularly vague description. He says Hank can bark at strangers and suspects that’s what caused someone to complain to the city council. immediately took to social media to plead Hank’s case and launch a #savehank campaign that has drawn nearly 300,000 signatures to an online petition, raised at least $25,000 for a legal defense fund and made “death row dog Hank” a UK media obsession.

Source: Washington Post July 28, 2016 09:11 UTC