From: Joann Bessler [mailto:joannub@yahoo.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 6:49 PM
To: mayorandcouncil@city.vancouver.bc.ca
Cc: Animal Advocates Society of B.C.
Subject: Guard Dogs

Please consider legislation to ban guard dogs in Vancouver.

Socially isolated, often physically abused, chained or confined in a pen or yard, a guard dog's life is a bleak existence. While individual dogs may be rescued, all too often the place at the end of the chain is quickly filled from the nearly endless pool of available stock. What can be done to improve the lives of these dogs?

For far too long our lawmakers have believed the BC SPCA's rhetoric that "education" is a sufficient answer. Education is necessary, yes, but not sufficient. Even if an effective, high profile public information campaign were in place, it would still take far too long to change the culture of abuse that too many dogs live with daily. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, founded in 1980, has made an enormous impact on public mores; yet none of us would expect MADD's education campaigns to substitute for enforcement, even after twenty-five years.

Now is the time to demand laws prohibiting the keeping of guard dogs. Whether staked out in a yard, isolated in a garage, or delivered nightly to an industrial area, guard dogs are incongruous in our urban environment. It is well known that in and of itself, isolating dogs can cause them to become aggressive.

Sadly, some owners, looking for a more vicious threat, add physical abuse to the psychological torment that their dogs suffer. Banning the keeping of guard dogs will not only greatly improve the welfare of dogs currently trapped in that existence, it will prevent future abuses.

Banning yard dogs is one mechanism to bring about them goal of ending dog abuse. Banning breeds may be another. Dogs kept in yards or outdoor pens are relatively easy to detect, while those confined to basements and garages are not. Should we succumb to the pacifying "out of sight, out of mind"?

For many years "animal welfare" organizations have believed it necessary to convince more people to take in the "unwanted" dogs. But making dog ownership fashionable, thus creating a market for dogs, has backfired. Backyard breeders have stepped up to the plate, eager to make a quick profit.

Protection breed pups make up 21% of all litters advertised in Lower Mainland newspapers. Surprisingly, it's not the small breeds that are the most expensive. Protection breed dogs (such as rottweilers, mastiffs, pit bulls, German shepherds and Dobermans) cost, on average, $520 each compared with $475 for all dogs. Clearly, breeders are responding to a market demand.

No one can doubt that the protection breeds are the most often mistreated of all dogs in our society. While there are, of course, happy well socialized individual dogs, our goal must be to eliminate the abuse suffered by guard dogs. Laws that target these most exploited breeds should be welcomed by those that favor them.

Well thought out legislation would not demand the immediate elimination of these breeds, but rather their natural attrition through strict breeding and import controls.

Controversial though it may be, a two-pronged approach of banning yard dogs and strictly controlling the breeding and importation of protection breeds would be a relatively quick and effective means to the end of eliminating guard dogs from our urban environment. The alternative is to allow generations of dogs to suffer while human sensibilities evolve.

Thank-you for your consideration.

Joann U. Bessler