A recent incident in Prairie Village in which an infant was left in critical condition after being bitten by a pit bull has once again put the city’s breed-specific rules for dogs in the spotlight.
Five years ago, after an emotionally fraught public discussion, the Prairie Village City Council opted to lift the city’s ban on pit bulls. Other Johnson County communities have also made this move in recent years.
What has been the impact?
Drawing firm conclusions is hard because dog bite incidents remain relatively rare in Prairie Village. Serious incidents like the one earlier this month that left the infant hospitalized are rarer still.
Dog bite incident data collected by the Prairie Village Police Department since 2020 shows just a handful of dog bites per year linked to pit bulls over the past five years.
A police representative also told the Post that there have been no criminal charges brought against a dog owner for a dog bite incident in the years the ban has been lifted.
A look at the numbers
Prairie Village was among several Johnson County cities that have lifted breed-specific bans on dogs in recent years. (The only local municipality still with such rules on the books is Leawood.)
Since Prairie Village lifted its pit bull ban in 2020, police have recorded a total of 101 dog bites, roughly 20 dog bite incidents per year on average.
The police department’s data includes incidents in which dogs not only bite humans but also bite other dogs or other animals.
Pit bulls did account for the most dog bites of any one breed in the Prairie Village data.
Of the 101 dog bite incidents recorded by police in the past five years, dogs identified as pit bulls accounted for 16 of those bites.
Other breeds of dogs have been linked to a similar number of incidents as pit bulls, with labradors accounting for 13 and hounds accounting for 11 over the same five-year period.
The dog bite incident earlier this month involving a pit bull and the infant is the only dog bite incident recorded by police in Prairie Village so far in 2025.
Criminal charges are rare in such cases
Sgt. Josh Putthoff with Prairie Village Police told the Post that the Prairie Village Police Department’s community service officers, who also serve as animal control officers, respond to a majority of the dog bite incident calls.
Putthoff said more police officers beyond the community service officers don’t generally become involved unless an incident is significant or there may be criminal charges filed.
In the past several years, aside from the March pit bull bite that left the infant in critical condition, Putthoff said he cannot recall a dog bite incident that required such a response from Prairie Village Police.
Putthoff said dog bite incidents are typically handled with citations, with a dog owner, say, being required to pay a fine for having a dog off-leash or some other violation of city code.
Police officers got involved in the recent March pit bull bite incident due to “the significance of the [infant’s] injury,” Putthoff said.
So far, no criminal charges have been filed in that case.
As far as how many dog bite incidents in the past five years that police officers have gotten involved with, Putthoff said “It would be very small, if any.”
Ban supporters, opponents weigh in five years later
Katie Barnett, an animal law attorney practicing in Kansas and Missouri whose clients were active in the effort to repeal the Prairie Village pit bull ban in 2020, told the Post in a Friday interview that no data shows that pit bull bans make communities safer.
Barnett said the city’s dog bite incident data from the past five years shows that Prairie Village, in terms of dog bites, is a safe place to live — with only 101 incidents in five years in a city of nearly 23,000 people.
Still, Barnett said she understands that certain dog bite incidents — such as the recent one in Prairie Village — catch the public’s attention.
Barnett said that “the rarity is so scary for all of us,” especially given that humans generally interact safely with dogs daily.
“I’m not trying to diminish this incident at all, because when incidents like what happened in Prairie Village happen, it makes us all say, ‘Oh my gosh, this doesn’t happen every day,’” Barnett said. “We’re not numb to this because it doesn’t happen very often.”
Teresa Chagrin, an animal care and control issues manager for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, told the Post that the animal rights organization still supports breed-specific bans to keep pit bulls safe.
Chagrin said pit bulls are the most neglected and abused dog breed nationwide, and that is why PETA sent a letter to Prairie Village in 2020 urging the city to keep its pit bull ban in place.
In the letter, PETA also asked the city to add specific protections for pit bulls, like requiring all pit bulls to be spayed and neutered, limiting the number of pit bulls allowed at a single property and prohibiting chaining. Chagrin said PETA stands by that guidance.
Pit bulls were originally bulldogs bred to fight in pits, and as a result, pit bulls “have this very high prey drive,” Chagrin said.
The damage caused by a pit bull bite “is much more severe than say a chihuahua or a poodle, and can be life-altering and result in death many times.”
“It’s just this instinct that they were created to have by humans,” Chagrin said. “No one is blaming the dogs. This is all because of humans, don’t get me wrong.”
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