This is the official COPE policy, given to AAS before the last municipal election:

COPE does not support the mistreatment of animals and would ensure
animal welfare laws are in place to prevent the prolonged keeping of dogs in
yards, in pens, on chains, in garages, and in other forms of isolation.
Thank you

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New Solutions. Fresh Ideas.
Larry Campbell & COPE

Now the City will have to do what it should have done years ago, after the first serious attack from a yard dog in Vancouver, which would have been many years, perhaps several decades, ago when the keeping of yard/guard dogs began to sharply increase. The pound will have (should have) the records of this first attack and all subsequent serious attacks. AAS's attention was first directed to the fact that the City will seize, prosecute, and destroy biting dogs, but will not prevent the bites in the first place, in 1998, when we were told of a deranged German shepherd yard dog that mangled a woman's arm when it got loose, (almost all savage attacks are on children, the elderly , and women), but we know that the City has seized and killed many desocialized yard dogs, always waiting for someone's life to be irrevocably changed, possibly ruined, before acting to kill the dog.

AAS has offered its help to the City in the past and we hereby do again; AAS knows more about these dogs than anyone else; clearly more than the pound does, that advises complainants that a dog is fine in a yard; clearly more than the Vancouver Police Department does, whose members frequently advise worried home-owners to get a guard dog; clearly more than the SPCA does, that has told complainants for decades that there is nothing it can do as long as the dog had food, water, and shelter, when in fact the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act permits the SPCA to more widely define neglect, even to include social neglect. These three agencies have all acted after there is a victim, not one of them has ever urged the City to prevent the attacks on victims. And the City's action? Kill the dog. At taxpayer's expense. The City has not responded to our offer to supply it with the reports that AAS receives.

(In other municipalities, where the SPCA is the pound, it is the SPCA that seizes and destroys these dogs... after an attack... at taxpayer's expense.)