(Beth Clifton collage)
First known attack by the pit bull involved––as is typical
PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kansas; KANSAS CITY, Missouri––From Prairie Village, Kansas to Kansas City, Missouri is just one step over the middle of State Line Road.
Therefore an infant who reportedly remained in critical condition a week later a pit bull mauling in the child’s home was on the evening of March 13, 2025 rushed from Prairie Village to Children’s Mercy Hospital in downtown Kansas City.
Prairie Village police sergeant Josh Putthoff disclosed little about the attack except that “The bite incident took place at the dog owner’s home while the owner was taking care of the infant. The dog owner is not the child’s parent. This specific dog,” who was euthanized at request of the owner, “had no history of aggression within Prairie Village and was not known to law enforcement,” summarized Juliana Garcia for the Johnson County Post on March 18, 2025.
Katie Bray Barnett.
Law rewritten through influence of GameDog Guardian founder
“The incident comes five years after the city of Prairie Village repealed its ban on pit bulls,” recalled Garcia.
The repeal campaign was led by attorney Katie Bray Barnett of Topeka, Kansas.
Bray Barnett, a former Best Friends Animal Society intern, is cofounder of GameDog Guardian pit bull rescue, and is co-author with Best Friends Animal Society senior legislative attorney Ledy VanKavage of various papers written in opposition to pit bull bans.
VanKavage led the parallel campaign to rescind a pit bull ban that was in effect in Kansas City from 1990 to 2019.
Pit bull lobbyist Ledy VanKavage.
(Best Friends Animal Society photo)
“Was the baby crying?”
Meanwhile, VanKavage suggested to CBC Fifth Estate reporter Mark Kelley in October 2017 that a fatal pit bull attack on a two-year-old, who was ripped from his also badly injured babysitter’s arms, might have happened because the child was crying.
Responded Kelley, “But if the child WAS crying? What kind of dog would attack a child?”
(See Daxton’s Friends, five years after trusted pit bulls killed a toddler.)
The primary argument for repealing the Prairie Village pit bull ban was that it became much harder to enforce after the Kansas City pit bull ban repeal.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Every council member who voted for repeal will bear responsibility”
Unsuccessfully fighting the Prairie City repeal proposal, former Prairie Village city council member Sheila Myers urged that the pit bull ban should be lifted only with the stipulations that pit bulls should be kept behind six-foot-high fences; be leashed or muzzled when off their owners’ property; have had obedience training; and be spayed or neutered, as well as microchipped.
Warned Myers, “If council votes to repeal without restrictions, then every council member who votes in favor will bear responsibility when, not if, a pit bull mauls a dog or person in Prairie Village.”’
Savannah Edwards
Aggressive lobbying
The Kansas City pit bull ban, and pit bull bans once in effect in most Kansas City suburbs, fell one by one to aggressive lobbying by the Animal Friends Foundation, Best Friends Animal Society, and the American SPCA [ASPCA], beginning in Topeka in September 2010.
The Topeka repeal appears to have contributed to the pit bull mauling deaths of Savannah Edwards, age 2, and Piper Dunbar, also age 2, later in 2010 and in 2016, respectively.
Savannah Edwards was reportedly killed by a pit bull from a local shelter that has never been identified in print.
(See Repeal of pit bull bylaw contributes to death of two-year-old.)
Tori Fugate.
(KC Pet Project photo)
KC Pet Project
The Kansas City point group for the bans to be lifted, the KC Pet Project, founded by pit bull advocate Brent Toellner, won the Kansas City animal shelter management contract in 2012.
Toellner left the KC Pet Project in 2016 to become senior director of national programs for the Best Friends Animal Society, working with Bray Barnett and VanKavage to dismantle pit bull bans around the country. His chosen successor at the KC Pet Project, Tori Fugate, subsequently won the entire Kansas City animal control contract.
(Beth Clifton collage)
KC Pet Project quit prosecuting violations of dog law
“The city managed municipal animal control until December 2020, when it started contracting with KC Pet Project to oversee the services,” summarized Eleanor Nash for the Kansas City Star on March 6, 2025.
“When the city was in charge of animal control, the busiest year for animal court saw 4,781 cases (for violations of the Kansas City animal control ordinance) filed from May 2016 through April 2017,” Nash found.
“When KC Pet Project took over in December 2020, halfway through the fiscal year, the filings dropped dramatically, from approximately 3,300 the previous year to almost 600 that year, an 82% decrease.
“The first full fiscal year with KC Pet Project in charge of animal services created a record low number of animal filings: 64 in 12 months.”
(Facebook photo)
“Growing pit bull population”
Kansas City, while repealing the former city pit bull ban, introduced a requirement that pit bulls be spayed or neutered, against the opposition of KC Pet Project, which in taking over animal services also took over responsibility for enforcing the pit bull sterilization ordinance.
Sam Zeff of KCUR radio in Kansas City in July 2024 noted a “growing pit bull population in Kansas City,” resulting from alleged non-enforcement of the ordinance.
“On July 1, 2024,” Zeff reported, “there were 288 dogs listed for adoption on the KC Pet Project website. Exactly half — 144 — were pit bulls.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
89% of dogs were pit bulls in 2023
This was Zeff’s second survey of KC Pet Project dogs offered for adoption.
“Of the 249 dogs offered for adoption on the KC Pet Project web site as of May 30, 2023, “ Zeff wrote then, “222––89%––were either pit bulls or pit mixes with pit bull traits clearly dominant.
“Last year,” Zeff detailed, “KC Pet Project wrote just 48 tickets for failure to spay or neuter pit bulls, according to data from Kansas City Municipal Court. That is 74% fewer tickets than the organization issued in 2020 when it took over animal control and 88% fewer than 2019, the last year the city ran animal control.”
(See Kansas City Pet Project dog attack claims don’t add up and When pit bull fanatics run animal control: U.K. could learn from K.C.)
(Beth Clifton collage)
Chris Culbertson
Wrote Kansas City Star reporter Eleanor Nash, “Kansas City Council members have been scrutinizing KC Pet Project’s track record enforcing the city’s animal control laws, leading up to a vote that could bring the services back under city control.”
Impelling the investigation have been multiple severe maulings by pit bulls and closely related bully breeds, including the November 3, 2024 death of Chris Culbertson, 46, attacked the day before by seven pit bulls who broke through a board fence, identified as pit bulls by the responding Kansas City police officers.
A neighbor’s security camera reportedly caught the entire 23-minute episode on video. The clips that have been released appear to show pit bulls.
(See Another Kansas City pit bull fatality intensifies spotlight on KC Pet Project.)
(Screenshot from video.)
Holly Lane
“A woman named Holly Lane ran to help and, in the process, was bitten,” reported Malik Jackson of FOX-4KC on March 12, 2025.
“Now Lane is suing KC Pet Project,” Jackson continued, “saying in part in the lawsuit: ‘Prior to November 2, 2024, KCPP had received multiple complaints from residents that various pit bull dogs in the neighborhood had escaped their enclosures.”
But Katie Bray Barnett, now general counsel for KC Pet Project, told Malik Jackson, Jackson paraphrased, that “It was Lane’s own dogs who had been terrorizing the neighborhood for two years before and after the attack.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
German shepherds?
“We can confirm that those dogs we were looking for in 2023 and were the subject of the directed patrol were German shepherds from the household of Holly Lane,” said Bray Barnett.
“Yes, we do believe these dogs should be taken off the streets for public safety. I mean, it’s clear that for two years these German shepherds have been terrorizing this neighborhood,” Bray Barnett told Jackson.
Recounted Jackson, “FOX4 drove by Lane’s home and saw one German shepherd. FOX4 found three citations, all for dogs in Lane’s home.
“KC Pet Project says they have no record of any calls about loose pit bulls in this neighborhood.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Bray Barnett & VanKavage: dog law has holes
Meanwhile, having dismantled the previous Kansas City dog ordinance, Katie Bray Barnett and Ledy VanKavage have resurfaced as critics of the legislation now in effect.
“A line needs to be added in the ordinance,” VanKavage told Kansas City Star reporter Ilana Arougheti, Arougheti paraphrased, “allowing animal control officers to take a dog out of an owner’s yard if they consider it dangerous and a threat to the public, without having to wait for a warrant, leaving it to the municipal judge’s discretion to decide if their ruling stands.
“Dogs ruled to be dangerous should be required to be spayed or neutered, which is normal in many cities,” and which is already required of pit bulls, but the requirement, as Sam Zeff pointed out, is opposed and has been largely unenforced by KC Pet Project.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Add definition of dog bite”
VanKavage “recommended Kansas City add a clause defining a reckless owner and another defining a dog bite to its ordinance,” Arougheti wrote.
“Currently, there isn’t verbiage in place specific to owners who allow their dogs to roam free and charge at pedestrians. In other cities, Vankavage said, a person can be barred from owning a dog for up to five years if they receive three of these types of violations within 24 months.
Katie Bray Barnett “flagged as a problem was that the city code doesn’t include a specific ticket or citation for a dangerous dog or potentially dangerous dog,” Arougheti continued. “That means that KC Pet Project, or whoever is tasked with animal control, cannot cite a pet owner if they have reason to believe a dog is dangerous or has the potential to harm people.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Officers could only cite owners for dog being a nuisance”
“Instead, officers could only cite the owner for the dog being a nuisance, which is the same citation they’d issue if a dog was barking too loudly and disturbing neighbors.
“KC Pet Project can declare an animal dangerous if it has probable cause and conducts an investigation, but that involves an administrative hearing and can’t lead to citations, fines, or jail time.”
Only “If in the hearing the dog is found to be dangerous, then the owner has to abide by certain restrictions like maintaining proper fencing and signage warning about the dangerous or potentially dangerous dog.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Allow animal control to get a warrant”
“Another big thing Bray Barnett said is missing from Kansas City’s current laws,” Arougheti mentioned, “is the ability for animal control to obtain a warrant to apprehend a dangerous dog.
“As of now, the only circumstances that allow animal control to get a warrant and apprehend a dog are if the dog bit someone, or if a pet owner abused or neglected the dog.”
In other words, the current Kansas City dog ordinance does more to protect dogs than to protect the public.
The VanKavage and Bray Barnett recommendations invite asking why, so far as the published public record indicates, they did not amplify or apparently even mention most of them during the thirteen years they worked to undo the pit bull ban.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Nothing to prevent first attacks
VanKavage, according to an August 24, 2006 account by Kansas City Star reporter James Hart, did recommend “stiff penalties, including jail time, if pet owners let a dangerous dog attack someone,” encouraged “dog owners, pet shops and animal shelters to alter their dogs, a process that could cut down on dog aggression,” albeit now known to be relatively ineffective, and “forcing pet owners to have a microchip inserted into their dog,” so that “If an animal attacks someone, the owner can be tracked down and held accountable.”
Beth & Merritt Clifton with friends.
None of that, though, would prevent first attacks. And at least half of all fatal and disfiguring attacks by pit bulls, like the one on the Prairie Village infant on March 13, 2025, are the first known dangerous incident involving the dog.
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