For two years, and especially since the horrifying attack on youngster Shenica White in December 2002, AAS has been asking, What will it take to make the people charged with protecting citizens regulate, restrict, or ban the owning of known breeds of dogs that are the most dangerous? Those people charged with protection of people and of animals are municipal and provincial legislators and the BC SPCA.
The City of Vancouver must know that it can't be sued, or surely Shenica White's lawyer would be suing it along with the owners of the dogs that destroyed young Shenica's face and life, so the City is smugly indifferent. And it has its "expert opinion" from two of Vancouver's leading dog behaviour experts who say that cocker spaniels are as big a problem as pit bulls and Rottweilers and that if one breed is regulated, all will be, which is self-serving (business-protecting) rot, proven so by decades of statistics, but which the City uses to hide behind. (See It’s a deadly mistake to think dangerous dogs can ever be pets http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/noframes/read/1980
The SPCA protects its donations from uncomprehending dog-lovers by never telling the truth which it knows only too well - that a few breeds of dogs are much more dangerous and deadly than other breeds and that it kills a lot of these dogs which are frequently in their pounds because owners dump their dangerous dog and no one decent wants them. It continues to say, as it did after an attack on one of its employees by a Rottweiler cross guard dog, that the problem is not certain breeds but bad owners. It is both, and both must be controlled.
Unless everyone stops lying about this and laws are enacted, the death of someone, probably a child, is a foregone conclusion. As veterinarian Dr Moe Milstein of North Vancouver says, "Dobermans have given way to pit bulls, which in turn have been replaced by 50-kilogram Rottweilers that, now, are being challenged by 75-kilogram mastiffs". The AAS breeders database shows that protection dogs are being bred bigger and meaner all the time, and no one is doing anything to stop this. Until the SPCA admits that some breeds are much more likely to kill a child and should be regulated, everyone will hide behind the SPCA's position.
From the AAS investigation into the Guard Dog Industry in BC of a large company that breeds and sells protection dogs in the Fraser Valley and were told by one of the owners that they sell:
German shepherd pups for the same amount.
English mastiff pups for $1000 - $3000. Males may weigh 200 lbs.
Will sell an adult Rottweiler or shepherd with some training for $600 - $4000.
They plan to breed fila mastiffs, also called Brazilian mastiffs, crosses between English mastiff, greyhound and bloodhound.
The owner said, "They bite - no warning, just come up and bite. Can jump six foot fences. Can be over 200 lbs. Bred to chase slaves and for jaguar hunting". They sell pups for $2000 and up.
Rottweiler pups for $400 - $600. Sold at 6 weeks of age.
Pit Bull attacks Chilliwack woman: http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/noframes/read/3384