11:07pm UK, Monday January 05, 2004

Dog lovers in the Big Apple have renamed the pit bull terrier the New Yorker in a bid to soften its image.

The tough pooch is being given the new name by the city's welfare agency.

A New Yorker?

Officials hope changing name will encourage more people to adopt the thousands of the dogs taken into care each year.

Some 90% of the 6,000 pit bulls taken in by New York City Animal Care and Control centre each year are destroyed.

Centre director Ed Boks, who came up with the idea, said the name was chosen because like New Yorkers, the dogs were often mistakenly thought of as hard or mean.

Animal experts say pit bulls outperform the far more docile golden retrievers on behavioural tests.

San Francisco tried a similar tactic in the 1990, renaming them the St Francis terriers, but it failed to persuade dog buyers.