The Editor,
The Province

It's always the weakest who pay the price. These two dogs paid with their lives and Shenica is paying with fear, pain and disfigurement.

The man who did not socialize his macho dogs and allowed them to escape from their yard is not going to pay, because the City of Vancouver has no bylaw that prohibits the keeping of unattended dogs in yards.

The City saved itself money by refusing to adopt this bylaw when urged to by Animal Advocates Society eighteen months ago. We gave the City our report, "It's Time!" with photostories of many suffering yard dogs and the expert opinion that proves that it is desocialized yard dogs that attack the way these two dogs did. We warned the City, over and over, that someday someone would be attacked and it ran the risk of being sued, because it had our information, and chose to do nothing.

The City chose to say the SPCA would "take care of this". But the SPCA never has, and the City had no contract with the SPCA to do this. The City has a legal duty to protect its citizens from dangerous dogs and it does this through its pound. But the City did not want to pay its pound to enforce a yard dog bylaw. Vancouver taxpayers pay to euthanise dangerous dogs after there is a victim.

The City saved itself money, and look who's paying the price!

Judy Stone
President, Animal Advocates Society of BC