If you’re a guardian of a pit bull dog in Montreal, then there are some measures you should know about. According to ctv, if you purchase a pit bull after September, it will be banned from Montreal’s territory.
In response to several recent attacks throughout the province, Anie Samson, vice-president of the city’s executive council, said yesterday “If owners are not able to prove they bought the dog before Sept. 26, then it will not be allowed on our territory.”
The new measure also include banning citizens under 18, or those who have a criminal record going back five years that involves violence, from owning a pit bull.
If you were meeting the city’s criteria for ownership, you will face a series of new, strict rules, including:
- All pit bulls must be muzzled when in public and on a leash no longer than 1.25 metres, unless they are in a dog park
- Pit bulls can only be outside and unleashed when surrounded by a fence at least two metres high
While pit bull advocates, however, are against the new measures, and say there is nothing dangerous about these types of dogs, but the truth is that these animals are treated with cruelty from many guardians, Montreal says it reserves the right to order any dog, regardless of breed, euthanized if it bites or kills a human or another animal.
The executive council also decided to centralize animal-control authority and force all boroughs to follow the same, new rules. Montreal’s new rules run counter to an early August report by a provincially appointed advisory panel, which did not recommend banning pit bulls.
Instead of targeting certain breeds, the panel suggested a law that would set conditions to owning dangerous or potentially dangerous dogs. The panel’s report referred to Ontario, which has had a pit bull ban since 2005 but doesn’t know whether the number of dog bites has been reduced because that data isn’t collected at the provincial level.
Several other Quebec cities, including Quebec City, have announced or discussed bans this summer after a string of attacks that included the death of Christine Vadnais, 55, who was killed in her own backyard. Some other Canadian cities, including Winnipeg, have banned the breed.
A glimpse about pitbulls
- Pit bulls are the result of breeding bulldogs and terriers
- They are dogs that combined the gameness and agility of the terrier with the strength of the bulldog
- In the United Kingdom, these dogs were used in blood sports such as bull-baiting, bear-baiting and cock fighting. These blood sports were officially eliminated in 1835 as Britain began to introduce animal welfare laws.
