More than 12 million dogs are euthanized each year in N.America, mainly due to aggression. There are no laws regulating the breeding, ownership, training or importing of dogs, making it easy for anyone to get any type of breed from anywhere in the world and use it as a killing machine. There are dogs in other parts of the world that make Pit Bulls look harmless, and they are starting to appear in N.America.

One woman who was interviewed in this story, got a purebred Rottie as a young pup and raised it with her family and did everything right. Today, this dog is a two year old liability with a bad attitude, and she will turn and attack with no warning. She is even starting to growl at the children who helped raise her. The woman admits she cannot handle the dog and has been kicked out of training classes due to the dog's aggression. So to those people who say there are "no bad dogs only bad owners", you are dead wrong. Sue Sternberg, a well known dog behaviorist, agrees. She says that power breeds are predisposed to be aggressive and no matter how well you treat them and train them, you never know when the dog will turn, making them a huge risk to society. She does not agree with breed specific legislation simply because she says if you ban one breed then someone will come along and replace it with something else or a cross breed, and you'd spend your life trying to add breeds to the list. Her answer is that she wants anyone who owns a dog over 35lbs to have to buy a permit and be liable for whatever that dog does, regardless of breed.

The Canadian Safety Council has been lobbying the Federal Gov't to create breeding and ownership laws and regulate the dog industry. Unfortunately, our Canadian Gov't has refused to get involved and instead they've been passing the buck and saying that this is a Municipal Gov't issue and should be handled by local animal control.

This is exactly what AAS has been trying to get the City of Vancouver to do, but they have ignored the reports submitted by AAS and the warnings from dog experts. In this W5 story, a reporter went undercover with a camera to go and buy a guard dog. A german shepherd was shown to her, and the breeder said "just put this dog in a compound and if anyone comes in, the dog will bite, simple..." The reporter asked if she could bring the dog to her home as a pet, and the breeder replied "sure, if you want.But keep the dog in a separate area away from people, because you don't want the dog interacting with anyone."
This is exactly what is happening in Vancouver. People are putting large breed dogs outside in their yards to guard the property and the dogs get no interaction with people. That is, until they get out of the yard. Then they attack to kill.

To the City of Vancouver: you have an epidemic of large breed yard dogs who pose an enormous threat to the citizens of your city. How can you even consider hosting the Olympics in 2010 unless you can assure the safety of tourists who visit this area? The buck stops here!