Guilty By Breed
A film about dangerous misconceptions
About the Filmmaker
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My name is Ashley L. Moore and I have been a writer and a dog lover ever since I can remember. I believe that dogs make our lives more fulfilling and they can actually teach us a lot about ourselves and make us better people. Pictured is my dog Chloe and I at a beach near San Francisco, California in 2010, and I can't imagine what the last 10 years of my life would have been without her. She was there with me during hard times and good times, she was there to help me pull all-nighters when I was studying for finals in film school, and she was always there to get me out of the house and breathe in some fresh air even when that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. I graduated Magna-Cum Laude from San Francisco State University's film program in 2011 and have been dying to not just make a film since then, but make a truly meaningful and impactful film that will touch people for years to come. Thank you for visiting the website and I hope to share this film with everyone very soon!
The Film's Fruition
The concept for the film "Guilty by Breed" came about because of my first hand-experiences with Breed Specific Legislation (BSL). As a basic outline to its many forms, it generally discriminates against dogs solely because of their looks or "breed." Living in rural Oregon most of my life, the idea of BSL was completely foreign to me and I wrestled with disbelief for several weeks when first learning of it. In 2012, I had secured a job in North Dakota and I had both Chloe and myself packed for the long journey. About a week before we departed, I learned that the legislature in the town which I was venturing to had a very strict form of BSL which allowed law enforcement to enter your home on just suspicion of having a "pitbull-type" dog, seize them, and euthanize them within 24 hours.
This idea horrified and infuriated me at the same time. My dog was a six year-old American Pit Bull Terrier who I had raised from a puppy of 5 weeks old. She had been with me through everything and never showed even the slightest sign of aggression to humans, cats, dogs, animals, gerbils etc. etc. How could anyone justify the confiscation of such a well-mannered and lovely dog, let alone the destruction of one through absolutely no fault of her own?
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I ended up leaving her in the loving custody of my father while I was away for three years working in North Dakota. We are now thankfully united again in a place where BSL doesn't exist... yet. As I thought about the problems in the world and the problems with BSL, I realized that most of them stem from judging or being afraid of anyone or anything that is different from our own selves. In this realization, the film "Guilty by Breed" was born and it deals with racism as well as the newly coined term "breedism."
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If you want to hear more about the film's plot and characters, please visit the Synopsis section on the home page. Thank you for reading!