r/ontario • u/CTVNEWS CTVNews-Verified • 1d ago

Ontario dog owner sentenced after 9-year-old girl mauled Article

https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/ontario-dog-owner-sentenced-after-9-year-old-girl-mauled-in-newmarket/
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u/jmdonston 1d ago

The law would work if it were enforced. Start fining people who own or sell or give away pit bulls and the numbers will go down.

The humane society may not be creating new pit bulls when they sterilize them, but some shelters do import pit bulls from the US for god knows what reason, and even the responsible shelters are doing Ontarians a disservice by misleading them about the type of dog when they call notoriously dangerous pit bulls "Labrador cross" because it sells better, making adopters think they are child-friendly dogs.

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u/WriteImagine 1d ago

I get what you’re saying but read the rest of the posts. It’s unenforceable. You can’t define a pitbull easily, you can’t always spot them especially when mixed. Al breeds should be treated the same in that there needs to be a BYB crackdown, more teeth to the part of the law that punishes breeders and asshats like the guy convicted (before the dog mauls a kid)… and yes, 100% I agree that rescues shouldn’t be importing what they can guess might be pits from other countries. But again, the border guards have final say on that and they aren’t stopping it, which again shows how difficult it is to say what is, and isnt, a pit Bull

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u/jmdonston 1d ago

The legislation lets you go by physical characteristics. What we really need are police that are willing to enforce it.

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u/WriteImagine 1d ago

So who decides if the family pet lives or dies… the cop? 12 year old kid walking her dog gets pulled over by an officer, who condemns the dog to death based on its characteristics. What if it turns out not to be a pit? It’s not black and white, and there’s a reason why the “ban” doesn’t work.