No more new pit bulls in Montreal after city council adopts bylaw

PITT MEADOWS (NEWS 1130) New pit bulls are no longer welcome in Montreal now that city council has passed a bylaw banning anyone from becoming a new owner.

One local government has looked hard at a breed specific ban, but is taking a different approach.

 

Montreal City Council 37-23 to adopt its controversial bylaw. The city made the move after a pit bull mauled a woman to death three months ago.

The ban includes Staffordshire Terriers, American pit bull terriers and American Staffordshire terriers. It covers purebreds, mixed-breeds and dogs which have characteristics of those breeds. Anyone who currently owns a pit bull will have get a special permit. They’ll also have to have their dog sterilized and it must be muzzled in public.

It was a violent attack which saw Pitt Meadows review its bylaw as well. Mayor John Becker says they explored a breed-specific bylaw, but found it would be too difficult to enforce.

“Part of it is the logistics… Is it a purebred pit bull? Is it half of this or quarter of that? And we saw ourselves in the position of literally having to get dogs DNA tested to determine the amount of prohibited breed in the animal and that just struck us as somewhat ludicrous. So we put a lot more enforcement into our dangerous dog bylaw.”

Becker says is became apparent that owners with dogs deemed dangerous could simply move to another town to avoid restrictions placed on them in Pitt Meadows.

He says that’s why council decided to put forward a motion at the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Victoria this week calling on the province to create a dangerous dog registry.

“This has been spearheaded by Councillor Janis Elkerton. (We) felt there needs to be provincial coordination to this so an animal that’s deemed to be a dangerous dog, the animal’s particulars would be uploaded to the provincial database and when the animal is re-registered in a new jurisdiction, all of that prior information would become available and the animal in the new jurisdiction would have to operate under a dangerous dog designation.”

The resolution is expected to hit the convention floor Thursday.

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