Toronto to shame dangerous dogs and their owners publicly

More than 230,000 dogs reside in Toronto, most without any problems too. Yet the report is trying to make the city more cautious when it comes to dealing with canines.

Toronto Animal Services Manager Elizabeth Glibbery defines dangerous dogs as “ a dog that has severely bitten a person or a domestic animal even once”.

However, dogs that have given non severe bites to people or domestic animals will also be graded dangerous as per the new amendment.

Gilbbery said, the goal is to “protect people from dog bites and to hold the owners accountable for their dogs’ behaviour.”

The new report mandates the owners to issue a danger warning sign in their homes. And when the dog is outside with the owner, its dog tag will let strangers know about its past deeds.

“The dog tag will be obvious; it will likely be coloured so you can identify it at a distance,” said Glibbery.

However Naomi Kane, the chair of the Responsible Dog Ownership Committee at the Canadian kennel club said, “I think I’m glad that Toronto is not considering it a breed-specific situation, but a little concerned about what is a domestic animal and calling a dog a dangerous animal because it ran after a pet bunny or a guinea pig.”

She further added, “It’s really about education and people understanding what they have on the end of the leash. So part of being a responsible dog owner knows what you’ve got.”

Dog owners however react very differently. For Annie Marker it comes as a big blow as her Pit Bull-Dalmatian mix Seona, is extremely friendly and has never bitten anyone.

“If Seona bites someone someday as a mark of her self defense, will they label her as dangerous,” said a worried Marker.

Amanda Hathway, owner of a Labrador thinks the new amendment is bit “too excessive” and “silly”.

She further said, “Dog’s respond in many ways. If we don’t like something we have our own ways to express it. Same goes with dogs too, if they did not like something at times they use their teeth too make you understand it and the motif was not to bite you. So labeling with one incident is really very unfair towards the faithful domestic animals.”

The new amendment will classify dangerous dogs and provide solutions how to deal with them, explained Gilbbery.

The report will be considered by the Licensing and Standards Committee on Sept. 21 and will be open to public feedback until the end of October.

(Reporting by: Debarati Mukherjee)