In light of the latest serious incidents pertaining to dog attacks on humans, municipalities have started facing pressure about introducing ordnances and bylaws to address the issue of not HOW a dog is to be kept in the backyard, but NOT to keep one – which is unsupervised - there at all. As someone, who has worked exclusively with pounds to rehabilitate such dogs, in every severe case, the reason for their extreme behavior was the result of neglect, abuse, but especially isolation.

I am still wondering though, what the level of enthusiasm from a political, public safety, animal welfare, and enforcement standpoint would be, if the introduction of such a by-law would be pursued in major municipalities.

Personally, I am approaching this from a public safety point of view. From my perspective, and based on my experiences, the reason people keep their dogs in yards falls into the following categories. All lead to the same conclusion. Unsocialized and - given enough time – dangerous dogs threatening to the public, leading miserable lives in solitude.

Cultural differences:
Most immigrants, especially from areas such as the Middle and Far East, come from countries where street dogs are the norm, and part of society. Most such dogs attach themselves to a household, who feeds them and gives them attention, and in return they do some basic guarding of the property, whenever they are around. However, these are free roaming dogs, which have every opportunity to socialize with humans and other animals on their own terms, and as a result become tame and social animals in general. Incidents between human and dog are seldom the case. After coming to North America – with no supply of street dogs, immigrants think that by acquiring a dog and keeping it in the back yard they can achieve the same results as they did back home. But by having severely curtailed their dog’s freedom, as well as taken away all aspects of proper auto-socialization, what they get is a highly dangerous animal both to them, and towards society. As a result such dogs end up in pounds, or face long and miserable lives in backyards, until one day some of them unleash their bottled up energy, anger and frustration on a family member, or after getting out, on an unsuspecting public.

The naïve and ignorant:
These are the ones, who have watched too many Lassie and Rin Tin Tin episodes in their younger days, thinking that dogs come with a manufacturer’s guarantee, fully trained with an IQ of 140 or higher. When they realize that the dog is a lot of work, and urine stains start appearing on carpets, while slippers start disappearing, not to mention some constant whining that does not seem go away by its own, they take the easiest way out and remove the dog from their habitat, and create a new one in the backyard, and then basically tend to forget about it. If and when complaints start from neighbors, then these dogs end up in pounds or worse, the garage…doomed to lead miserable lives.

The macho and criminal element:
This group tends to subscribe to the most dangerous of breeds – breeds that have no business in a society such as ours and don’t even come close to the meaning of a “pet”-, while at the same time they think that they’ve got things covered by leaving them to their own devices in their yards. The thing is that these dogs do not distinguish between the axe murderer and the paperboy. While chances of an axe murderer threatening someone is infinitesimally remote, the odds on the paper boy getting ripped apart one day, are better than average. On the other hand, someone who wants to and knows how to by-pass a so-called untrained guard dog - without an experienced handler to give it directions – can do so with ease. So all that is left is a highly dangerous animal roaming in the backyard, pondering of ways to get out and hurt or kill someone, which as all of us are well aware, is what eventually happens.

Last but not least are the psychologically disturbed, the abusers of animals as well as humans, the control freaks, and the psychopaths. Dogs that are unlucky enough to end up with them are usually not nearly the threat to society that their owners are, and this becomes more a case of dealing with extreme cruelty rather than a threat to public safety. These are dogs that are tied up on 3 ft chains all their lives, exposed to the elements, with no food and water, get beaten and tortured into oblivion, and have the life drained out of them to the extent that they have no will left to live. Death is not a sentence but a salvation for these animals.

During my tenure with various municipal pounds, dogs from all of the above environments have passed through it. I know, because I worked with the worst cases.

It is a fact that most municipalities pass some hard to enforce Animal Welfare bylaw to shut up Rescue Groups, and to look politically correct in the public eye – and then continue business as usual. That cannot be the case anymore. There can be no ambiguity, as to where this type of bylaw – if carefully prepared and passed - is leading to, and what the consequences will be. The question is “Who is prepared to spearhead an initiative – both from an animal welfare and public safety perspective - that will set a humane precedent North America-wide, which is both enforceable and sensible.”

I am a realist and am aware that animals are neither a priority in municipal plans, nor are they a popular topic in council meetings, however… if municipalities want to take this to the next level, there is plenty of help and experience around that can do research and come up with a blueprint on which, with all the elements at their disposal, the municipality can build upon.

The only question that remains is “How important is all of this to the general public, and how deeply do the majority want to get involved in it”. It is their level of enthusiasm that will set the tone.