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to the American Kennel Club (Rottweilers are #17) for the year 2006. So a lot of families have these two dogs. Bites occur to nearly 2% of the population each year from all dogs combined. Most can be attributed to poor socialization, poor training, not spaying or neutering and just plain not supervising correctly. These are all owner faults. It is not the dogs fault.

Phil Supple, Director of Media for State Farm, said in a 2003 article on Insure.com, "We believe that there are good dogs and bad dogs within every breed, just as we believe that there are responsible and irresponsible owners." The article also stated that State Farm doesn't discriminate against breeds. They do, however, want to know if a dog has bitten anyone before. They will look at the circumstances of the attack in that case. Was it provoked or unprovoked? How serious was the injury? State Farm, and other companies that are fair to dog owners, are rightfully concerned with unprovoked attacks. (Anyone who has picked up a newspaper over the past few weeks knows all about the current controversy with Congo and the debate over why a provoked dog might be executed.)

Some of the large insurance carriers won't cover homes in certain areas if a restricted dog is present. It's actually easier to get coverage with a handgun in the house than with a Siberian Husky present. Some states ban this practice, and rightfully so. There are bills in several other states looking to ban the practice.

State Representative Robert Menga (D-New Haven) Connecticut wrote bill HB 6543 a few years ago. I interviewed Rep. Menga online from 12/13/07 to 12/14/07. He said, "I wrote the bill to be very accommodating to the insurance industry. It said that breed in itself could not be used to deny a homeowner policy. However the insurance company could require underwriting guidelines with each breed, such as obedience training, neutering, no children in household, no nearby school, etc.... If the guidelines were not met then the insurance company could deny coverage based on breed. I thought it would give the chance of responsible dog owners of certain breeds the ability to buy insurance in the same market as most homeowners."

Representative Menga added, "The [insurance (my addition)] industry fought me hard. Lobbied the entire legislature. It was an 80 minute floor debate in the house. The speaker held the machine open and helped me influence a few house members to put the vote count over the top."

But the bill failed in the

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