Pit Bulls Win a Stay--for Good Behavior : Adoptions: City animal shelters are now allowed to release puppies that don’t live up to the terriers’ reputation for viciousness.

Elena Kane, kennel supervisor at the West Valley Animal Shelter in Chatsworth, stuck her hand into a cage holding a stocky pit bull. “See how friendly he is?” she said as the dog playfully licked her hand.

A few months ago, that pit bull would have been condemned to death--playful licking notwithstanding--under a sweeping policy barring city pounds from putting the large terriers up for adoption because of the animals’ reputation for viciousness.

But now the chocolate-brown stray and his large-jawed relatives have a chance for survival. Without any fanfare, Robert I. Rush, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation, has rescinded the ban on pit bull adoptions. Under the new policy, the dogs may be adopted, but only if shelter workers decide the dogs would not pose a threat if released.

“This is a fair way to do it,” Rush said, adding that the new policy is aimed mainly at puppies--dogs under 4 months of age.

It still will be difficult to adopt mature pit bulls from city pounds, he said, because adult pit bulls are presumed to be dangerous and must be proven safe--not the other way around.

“We don’t want to put something out there that’s a killing machine,” he said.

Although statistics are not available, some adult pit bulls have been sold since the ban was lifted Dec. 31, Rush said. And the chocolate-brown pit bull in Chatsworth, Kane said, appears to be a likely candidate for adoption--so far.

Rush banned pit bull sales in February, 1990, a month after the first pit bull-related death recorded in Los Angeles. Marjee Lilly, 70, was mauled by her grandson’s two mongrel pit bull terriers. The dogs had chewed her arms to the bone.

In a blunt memo, Rush wrote that city shelters “shall not sell any pit bull-type dog to any person, period.” Pit bulls not reclaimed by their owners were put to death.

But some animal welfare groups called the ban unrealistic and Draconian, saying authorities should judge individual dogs, not condemn entire breeds. Lois Newman, an animal welfare activist from Hollywood, unsuccessfully sought a court order to overturn the ban.

“I’m not for letting a dangerous dog out,” Newman said. If stray pit bulls have scars--a clear sign of fights--”they should be put down,” she said. But pit bull puppies, Newman argued, can be ideal pets if trained properly.

Newman and other critics of the policy complained that there is no firm definition of a pit bull. The name does not refer to a specific breed but to a large class of low-slung, muscular dogs with powerful jaws, characteristics shared by American pit bull terriers, Staffordshire terriers and American Staffordshire terriers.

Rush said he finally rescinded the ban at the urging of the Animal Regulation Commission, animal-welfare groups and supervisors of the city’s six animal shelters, who asked for more flexibility in dealing with the dogs.

Animal regulation officials and critics of the ban agreed on one point, however. A pit bull is often dangerous because it’s been trained that way.

“All of those dogs aren’t really monsters,” said William Beauford, district supervisor at the East Valley Animal Shelter in North Hollywood. “Many of them have fallen into ruthless people’s hands.”

It’s impossible to say how many pit bulls were killed under the old policy because the Animal Regulation Department does not log by breed the animals it destroys, Rush said. But overall, Los Angeles animal shelters receive about 150 pit bulls a month, most of them strays, he said.

The ban on pit bull sales was unusual but not unique, according to shelter experts. Nationwide, some municipalities and even private pounds refuse to release pit bulls, said Ann Joly, program coordinator with the Humane Society of the United States in Washington, D.C.

The New York City Board of Health tried to enforce one of the most stringent pit bull policies in the nation in 1989, ordering owners of pit bulls to register their dogs with the city--identifying the animals with photographs and tattoos. The owners also were told to carry $100,000 in liability insurance.

The board declared that no new pit bulls would be allowed in New York City after Oct. 1, 1989. It was unclear how such a policy would be enforced in a metropolis of 7 million people. As it turned out, it never was.

The American Kennel Club filed suit, arguing, just as Newman did in Los Angeles, that the policy unfairly singled out a specific breed. The New York Supreme Court agreed and issued an injunction preventing the board from enforcing all the provisions of its anti-pit bull policy.

New York, in response, modified its ordinances controlling all types of vicious dogs, and the Board of Health is expected to repeal the pit bull policy at a public hearing in April.

In Los Angeles, Kane and other animal care technicians will rely on observation and instinct to decide which dogs die and which ones will get at least a chance for adoption. They quickly learn that, in pit bulls, appearances can be deceiving.

A few feet away from the chocolate-brown pit bull stood another male pit bull whose dirty, curly hair made him look a bit comical. But that morning he had snapped at a kennel worker.

“Hi, sweetie,” Kane said, all smiles as she approached the cage. The dog was not impressed by her friendly overtures and let out a faint growl.

As it turned out a few days later, the dog was reclaimed by its owner. The dog was lucky.

A few hours after the snapping incident, Kane had declared the dog to be “iffy.”

“If he acts like that,” she said, “I don’t want to adopt him out.”