Is a dog bite ever justified?

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Years ago, we moved house at a very inopportune time.

I had a brand new litter on the ground, just a few days old, and there was no pushing ahead our moving date. So, I packed up the dam and her puppies, and put them into the ground floor bathroom of the new house, safely tucked into the bathtub, complete with a heating pad and loads of bedding. On the door, I put a LARGE, hand lettered sign that said “Dog inside – DO NOT OPEN DOOR!!!!!”.

You can probably imagine what happened.

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Mystery Pit Bull Saves Woman, Might Now Lose Life

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Kalena Mallon with Faith, the dog who saved her life

 

Like everyone , I am a sucker for stories of heroic dogs who save the lives of their people. Even more amazing are those mystery dogs who seem to appear out of nowhere, just in the nick of time…

But not all heroic dog stories have happy endings – not if you live, like I do, in a province or state with BSL (breed specific legislation).

 

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Update from Yarmouth

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Kristin Williams, executive director of the Nova Scotia SPCA, gives a presentation against breed specific legislation. Photo from the Yarmouth County Vanguard

 

Good news came out of the town of Yarmouth public meeting. It looks like breed specific legislation (BSL) is off of the table altogether, and a lot of the other extreme, draconian clauses (like the idiotic ‘two dogs or they’re dead’ clause) are also being removed.

A full report on the meeting, with quotes from some of the emails council received on the proposal, is here:

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SPCA Pays New Brunswick Shelters to Kill Dogs

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World’s longest covered bridge, Hartland, NB. I spent part of my childhood living a few minutes from this bridge, but I’ll never move back there now

 

I’m having a really, really hard time wrapping my head around this entire situation, but I’m going to give it a go.

Back in June of 2010, the Province of New Brunswick, Canada, passed sweeping new legislation that it refers to as its “Pet Establishment Regulations“. The new regulations define anyone who breeds, sells or shows dogs as a “kennel”, and requires them to obtain a kennel license.

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