The story of Brittaney and Rambo took another interesting turn last week -- marking yet another turn on what is becoming an expensive embarrassment for the city for Brampton.
You can read the back links for more details, but essentially Brittaney and Rambo -- two dogs from the same litter (Brittaney's picture is on the left, Rambo is the larger dog on the right -- with a 2nd picture below) were confiscated from their owners back in Janauary because the city believed that both dogs, who belonged to different owners, were 'pit bulls' -- a type of dog that is banned under the Ontario Dog Owner Liability Act.
The owners claim that neither dog is a 'pit bull', and in fact, their mother is known to be a Boxer (she is pictured below-- in a previous post I had mistakenly identified the mother as Rambo -- I appologize for the error).
While the
trial for Brittany and Rambo has been taking place, the dogs have been kept in private for now over 2 months without the owners of the dogs being allowed to even visit them.
The city of Brampton, still defensive of their conclusion that the two dogs are indeed banned dogs in the provence, took out a full page add in the local newspaper in order to defend their position.
Now, because they haven't wasted enough taxpayer money on this little escapade, the city has now hired a high-dollar lawyer so the city can defend it's right to kill the dogs.
Throughout the entire process, it seems as if the city (and the Ontario Dog Owner Liability Act) have failed to ask the most logical question in this case: Are the dogs aggressive? By all reports, the dogs are well-behaved, docile dogs -- but now, the taxpayers of Brampton are footing the bill for full page ad in the newspaper, and now the costs of a lawyer, so the city can get the "ok" to kill two dogs that are not aggressive.
Does this make any sense to anyone? (It certainly doesn't make sense to LassieGetHelp or BrindleStick). At this point, if you are any type of taxpaying citizen in Brampton, call your city adminstrators and tell them to quit wasting your tax dollars.
And if you're a dog-lover, saveontariodogs.com has set up a a fund to help with the legal defense of the two dogs.
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Meanwhile, in Halifax, a dog named Brindi is on death row stemming from an incident where she got in a skirmish with another dog. By all reports, the other dog received no more that some minor scratches from the incident, but the city council in Halifx has decided to put the Brindi on death row. Brindi has 9 days left to live and they are doing a countdown for him over at MyLetsAdopt (all posts are done twice, once in French and once in English).
I'm no fan of forgiving severe dog aggression -- but anyone who has spent any time around dogs knows that skirmishes do happen from time to time. When they do, they most often end in only minor injuries for either dog. Skirmishes between dogs are NOT a reason to kill a dog for being aggressive. Insist that the owner take the dog to training -- but we seem to be way to trigger-happy on this continent to kill dogs for minor skirmishes (because we can't tell the difference between that and true aggression) and because of the way dogs look.
It's not that hard folks to tell dogs that really are aggressive a potential threat to society. And neither of these Canadian cities are able to do so. And it's a shame.
I feel for Brindi's owners - -who are launching a full-on campaign to save Brendi's life. I know they would appreciate the support and any letters you can send to the folks in Halifax.
I usually try to add this as part of the weekly roundup, but there have been some great posts from around the internet the past 10 days or so and I just really want to put them out there for some excellent reading. I really do encourage you to click through -- some great stuff out there.
Sam theDog Trainer has a very good new article on some of the causes for dogs biting young children. The keys are supervision children and dogs, providing proper training and exercise for your dog, and not creating a stressful environment for your dog.
Great news from Austin Pets Alive -- the Austin city council unanimously passed the resolution to make the necessary steps to make Austin a no-kill city. Here's a link to the shelter recommendations on how they plan to achieve no kill.
The folks at Animal Ark Foundation in Minneapolis have a great You Tube video they put together on how the animal welfare industry lost their way -- based on the book Redemption. It's very much worth watching -- it's 20 minutes long but goes very quickly.
Fred at One Bark at a Time has a really great article about dog bites. The reality is that most dog bites happen for a reason -- and it is usually caused by something the human did wrong. The more we understand dog behavior, the more we can properly assess whether a biting dog is truly aggressive or not. Fred shares a couple of personal stories that provide great examples for discussion. I'm a fan of Fred's writing (and photography), but I think his telling of personal stories like this are him at his best.
Christie had a great article in the San Franscisco Chronicle about why dog advocates aren't moving on when it comes to Michael Vick's unpaid dues. Vick's actions went far beyond dog fighting and into nearly unspeakable animal cruelty...for which Vick has never shown even the slightest bit of remorse.
This one is seemingly a bit random, but this is an article by John Stossel one what he feels like is a double-standard that journalists seem to have about bias. When Stossel first started as a journalist, he mostly reported about companies that were trying to screw over consumers (he has some interesting thoughts on this), and when he was doing it, other journalist liked him. But now that he has turned his focus onto the government and media and its constant fear mongering. I think it's a pretty good read following my series on the Science of Fear a few weeks ago. For what it's worth, I did a write-up about Stossel's Series: Fear Mongering in America back in 2007 - -you can read those installments here, here, here and here.
PBRC has launched a new blog called Pitter Patter. The site is mostly really cute pictures of 'pit bulls' in really funny moments and with funny headlines. Think of it as the LOLcats for 'pit bulls'. Nearly guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.
YesBiscuit has a good commentary on "What if we all neutered our pets today?" in response to the push for mandatory spay/neuter in Northeast Georgia.
