To answer Mr. Brodgesell's question... in my view there are just too many pet animals in an area not suited for them. An urban area such as Vancouver has an enourmous amount of animals of all kinds - mainly dogs and cats - that share space with humans, and are expected to abide by human laws and standards. This of course causes all kinds of confrontations, because - as Mr. Brodgesell has put it so well - some things are in their nature, and simply adopting them and treating them to our standards, will not erase eons of instincts and habits. Ideally, the number of pets allowed; how they are kept, treated and maintained; sold and bred should be strictly limited, monitored and enforced. This is an urban society with little room to maneuver, with high tensions, low tolerance, overcrowding... all of which cause us to incarcerate animals and limit their natural instincts at much higher levels than let's say rural areas do. There no such problems exist. The animals have far greater freedom, the rules are simpler and have a much better chance of working out by themselves. If your dog attacks your neighbor's sheep it will be shot. Your neighbor will not apologize, and you will not make a fuss. But then again this rarely ever happens, because over there animals are given the chance to learn at a very early age what is acceptable and what is not. At the same time they are also given enough freedom to learn how to make the correct decisions - mostly by looking and learning from the generation before them. If on the other hand, you have two dogs in an urban area, that are kept locked up all day, and then either left out for a few minutes - or escape their surroundings, it should come as no surprise to anyone that they go after anything that moves - on an escalating scale from bunnies to humans. Here we are living in a high density urban area, looking into each other's kitchen or backyard, expecting animals - that are way out of control in sheer numbers - to abide by standards we ourselves have a hard time keeping.
The numbers of animals in urban areas must be - over time - reduced significantly, and limited according to enforceable parameters. Since that will not happen voluntarily in a society that still considers animals as property, it must happen by law. It needs some strong political backbone, since the pet industry's response will not be pretty. It must be made difficult to own any animal in large urban societies... and this comes from a person, who lives with five rescued animals in his home, some of which have very questionable social skills. I don't want to have to rescue, constantly monitor and control them anymore. There should be none left to rescue.
But I also never complain. We have brought this onto ourselves, and now it is time to pay the piper. If anyone thinks that without forceful intervention humans will suddenly become more responsible and humane, and - by our standards - pet animals start behaving better, then they are sadly mistaken.