Sarnia Ignores Expert – Still Claims Death Row Dogs Pit Bulls

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Sarnia's New City Crest

Sarnia's New City Crest

The idiocy in Sarnia continues, with talking head Brad Loosley now claiming that Sarnia Animal Control Officers are “highly trained professionals”, with opinions that outweigh those of internationally respected breed experts with decades of experience judging and assessing Pit Bulls.

Alan Bennet has been a dog breeder for 30 years, and a show dog judge since 1993. In that time, he has, in his own words, “Judged (American Staffordshire Terriers) all over the world”. AmStaff, by the way, is the fancy kennel club name for the dogs the rest of the world calls Pit Bulls. Mr. Bennet recently donated his time and expertise to the owners of the death row dogs in Sarnia, examing the dogs, and submitting a written report to the city of Sarnia. The dogs, says Bennet, are NOT Pit Bulls, or anything ‘substantially similar’.

From the article in the Observer:

“These dogs definitely don’t look pitbullish. Their chests are too narrow and they’re much taller than the bull breed.”

Not good enough for Sarnia Animal Control, however, who won’t back down from their own assessment, and who claim that their own ‘experts’ knowledge of Pit Bulls outweighs that of a man who has been paid to travel around the world judging them professionally. No, Sarnia AC is sticking to its guns, and now also plans to murder the sire of the two puppies originally seized:

..the city has not returned the dogs despite Bennett’s input, says Sonya Pimentel, owner of an 11-month-old pup impounded by the city’s animal control officers nearly three weeks ago.

Her dog and another pup from the same litter, as well as the puppies’ father, will be euthanized unless the owners can prove their pets are not pitbulls or look “substantially similar” to one.

So, the owners have been told that they must ‘prove that their dogs are not Pit Bulls’, which they’ve attempted to do by retaining an actual, real live, honest to God expert on Pit Bulls. “Not good enough!” claims Sarnia AC.

I think that the only thing now that can possibly save these dogs is an outpouring of public anger and outrage. I suggest you direct yours to Sarnia City Hall, since Animal Control has obviously circled the wagons and is not backing down. I’ve heard that they’re no longer answering the phone in their department – a luxury that I doubt City Hall has.

Why not let them know how you personally feel about their city’s policy of seizing dogs off the street, unprovoked, and sentencing them to death?

Sarnia is a major border crossing between Canada and the USA – perhaps a refusal to use that crossing, with the concurrent drop in city income from travelers, might hold some sway with Sarnia’s powers that be. After all, are you willing to take the chance of driving through Sarnia with your dogs? Are you confident that your dogs could escape being labeled as ‘substantially similar’ to Pit Bulls, when ‘substantially similar’ for Sarnia Animal Control seems to mean only slightly blocky headed and short coated?

Contact information for Sarnia City Hall –

City Manager – Located on the 2nd Floor at City Hall

citymngr@sarnia.ca

Lloyd Fennell, City Manager

519 332-0330 Ext. 230

All departments report to the City Manager, by the way. Oh, and look what else I found – seems that Brad Loosley wears a few hats for the city of Sarnia.

Brad Loosley, Acting Deputy City Clerk

519 332-0330 ext. 258

That’s Brad’s direct line and extension. Go nuts.

When is a Frenchie not a Frenchie?

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Pit Fighting Frenchies

According to the author of this newspaper article about an Arkansas “Pit Bull” attack, a Frenchie is not a Frenchie when it’s actually a Pit Bull. Ditto Bostons and (English) Bulldogs, by the way.

The American Pit Bull Terrier was bred first to bait bulls and bears. When baiting bulls was deemed inhumane, dog fighting became more popular, and the pit bull was used in the sport. The term pit bull today is used to refer to the specific breed as well as the Boxer, English Bulldog, Olde English Bulldogge, American Bulldog, French Bulldog, Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog, Valley Bulldog, Boston Terrier and Bull Mastiff.

Note this sentence: “The term pit bull today is used to refer”.

Funny enough, that’s actually sort of accurate – after all, moronic politicians across the world have been referring to Boxers, Bulldogs, Frenchies, Pugs, Dogues De Bordeux, Bullmastiffs and just about any other dog breed you care to imagine as “Pit Bulls”.

In fact, the ‘term’ Pit Bull is pretty much just that – a ‘term’, used as a catch all to encompass just about any short haired, slightly blocky headed dog breed or mixed breed dog, anywhere in size from 15 pounds to 200 pounds. It no longer means anything – and it certainly no longer means the singular dog that the term was originally meant to designate, the breed now known as the American Pit Bull Terrier or American Staffordshire Terrier.

Consider Animal Control in Sarnia, Ontario. They, like so many other ACs in so many other cities, put the onus on the owners of dogs deemed to be ‘substantially like’ a Pit Bull to prove that their dog is NOT one. For Sarnia AC, paperwork proving parentage is not proof of the breed of the dog itself (don’t try to think about this too hard, as it will only cause your head to hurt).

So, if I was to walk Pickle, for example, through Sarnia – on a leash, law abiding and minding our own business – Sarnia AC could still pick Pickle up, impound her, and sentence her to euthanasia. And, since I have not yet registered her litter, the fact that I can prove that her mother is a French Bulldog and her father is a French Bulldog would not be enough for me to prove that she is a French Bulldog.

Of course, in some cities it would not matter if I could prove that she is a French Bulldog, since French Bulldog = Pit Bull = Banned = Dead.

Also, let me point out that a few cities out there have banned Pugs.

This is like banning marshmallows for having too many hard corners. It’s like banning kittens for being not fluffy enough. It’s like listening to idiot politicians who have zero clue about dog breeds, and ignoring the actual experts with concrete knowledge of dog bite issues.

It’s like living in Ontario, where Michael Bryant can drag a cyclist to his death, and come out of it as the injured party who was in fear for his life.

Countering the Bryant Spin Machine – New Video

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The Bryant media spin machine is now calling the death of Darcy Sheppard a ‘fatal accident’, and has done everything in its power to paint Bryant as the innocent victim of an attack by a drunk and out of control cyclist.

What they’d very much like all of us to ignore is the initial incident that sparked this entire confrontation – Bryant hitting Shepherd’s bike with his car.

Have you ever ridden a bicycle in city traffic? If you have, imagine the impact of a full sized car hitting you. Would you emerge unscathed? Would you be afraid, or even angry?

And how much differently would you feel about this whole ‘Michael Bryant is the real victim here’ spin machine, if you could see footage of him setting this entire tragedy into motion?

Video after the cut.

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Sarnia Kills Puppies

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Some of Sarnia's finest Puppy Killers

Some of Sarnia's finest Puppy Killers

From the Sarnia Observer:

Suspected Pit Bulls on Death Row
Korinn Seabrook and Sonya Pimentel are desperate to stop Sarnia from euthanizing their puppies, but neither is optimistic they can be saved.

The women, who are friends, each adopted an 11-month-old dog they believe are boxer mixes from a mutual friend.

“Both the mom and the dad are boxer mix. My friend has the papers to prove it,” said Seabrook.

But Sarnia animal control officers say the puppies look like Staffordshire bull terriers, a breed that’s been illegal to own in Ontario since legislation was passed in 2005 to ban so-called pitbulls.

Seabrook’s dog Maddi went missing Sunday night near her home on Michigan Avenue. She believes the 30-pound pup escaped through a hole in the screen door.

“I stayed up all night looking for her,” she said. In the morning, she discovered Maddi at the Sarnia and District Humane Society.

The dog was running at large, had no licence and is not spayed, says Brad Loosley, the city’s acting deputy clerk. She was also judged to be “substantially similar” in appearance to a Staffordshire bull terrier.

The city seized the dog and impounded her, initially saying Maddi would be euthanized Thursday. She has since been granted a reprieve until Sept. 10 to give her owners an opportunity to prove she isn’t a Staffordshire bull terrier.

“I don’t like it anymore than anyone else,” said Loosley. “But the city has to enforce the provincial legislation.”

He said he’s trying to work with Seabrook and her boyfriend, but the paperwork they have is insufficient.

“It’s awkward. The onus is on them to prove it’s not a Staffordshire bull terrier. But paperwork that says mom and dad are boxers is not good enough.”

Seabrook tearfully admitted to “screwing up.”

“I know I should have had her licenced but I didn’t have the money,” she said. “But how can this be happening? I don’t want my dog to die.”

Loosley said the opinions of a veterinarian and an expert from the Canadian Kennel Club might help save Maddi. But Seabrook isn’t convinced and, besides, she doesn’t have the financial means to pay experts, she said.

“Maddi is a good dog and she doesn’t growl. She doesn’t even bark. She’s a sweetheart and it’s ripping my heart out.”

Pimentel owns another puppy from the same litter. Her dog Carter was impounded Tuesday morning in what she calls bizarre circumstances, she said.

“I was walking Carter on a leash along the sidewalk on Indian Road when a car pulled up and control officers grabbed him,” she said. “They said he looked like a pitbull and had no licence.”

She moved to Sarnia from St. Clair Township last week and hadn’t had time to get a licence, Pimentel said.

City officials told her they will euthanize Carter on Saturday unless she can prove he’s not a Staffordshire bull terrier, she said.

“I want to know what training or authority these animal control officers have to say my dog is a pitbull. I’m going to be at city hall with the papers (today). My three kids love him and he’s never hurt anyone.”

Seabrook said she’s inquired about dog blood tests but was told that can take two months.

Dogs judged to be Staffordshire bull terriers by city officers are impounded at least once a month and they are usually killed, Loosley said.

Way to go, Sarnia Animal Control! I feel so much safer knowing that you’re out there, rounding up anything that even looks vaguely like a Pit Bull, and killing it within days if the owners can’t prove it isn’t one.

Yes, that’s right – Sarnia doesn’t have to prove your dog is a Pit Bull to kill it, they only have to think it looks ‘substantially like one’. The onus is on you, the owner, to prove otherwise – something near to impossible for owners of a wide variety of mixes and unpapered purebreds.

Apparently, even knowing the parentage of your dog isn’t enough to prove to Sarnia Animal control that your dog isn’t a Pit Bull.

As AC Loosley says:

“The onus is on them to prove it’s not a Staffordshire bull terrier. But paperwork that says mom and dad are boxers is not good enough.”

So, you’ve got paperwork that says mom is a Boxer,  and Dad is a Boxer, but this isn’t enough to make the puppies Boxers, too – because those sneaky Pit Bull genes are like that, sliding in and infiltrating otherwise innocent dog breeds.

Uh huh. Good science there, Sarnia AC.

Is anyone else particulary disturbed by the scene where Sarnia AC drives up to someone walking their leashed dog, and then in as fine a display of police state mentality as we can hope to see in Canada, they launch themselves out of the vehicle and tear the dog away from her owner (reportedly wrenching the dog owner’s arm in the process, according to a commentator who claims to have been there).

The dog’s crime? It looks sorta kinda maybe like a Pit Bull, so Sarnia AC says it “has no choice” but to kill it.

“We don’t like to do this but the law is the law. We’re just doing our job. If we ever let one go without proof we would be in a lot of trouble.”

A lot of trouble with who, pray tell? You think there’s some sort of master group out there doing random inspections of towns like Sarnia, making sure that AC has rounded up everything that looks vaguely Pit Bull-ish?

What bullshit.

You guys enforce this stupid, pointless ‘law’ with this kind of over zealous enthusiasm because you like it. It gives guys with otherwise pretty boring jobs licence to act like Dirty Harry.

At the end of the day, however, you’re not a bunch of heroes, ridding the city of villains and protecting the citizenry.

You’re baby killers. You’re puppy killers. You’re murderers.

If you want to tell Sarnia Animal Control what you think of their ‘enthusiasm’ for killing anything that looks remotely like a Pit Bull, here’s their contact info:

From their website:

Please call 519 332 0330 extension 351; TTY: 519 332 2664 at City Hall for Animal Control

Let’s Look at Some Puppies

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Thanks for not letting Michael Bryant run us over!

Thanks for not letting Michael Bryant run us over!

Do you know what I do when I’m having a bad week? I go outside, sit in a chair, and look at puppies. Puppies in the grass, puppies sun tanning their bellies, puppies pouncing on each other from on top of rocks, puppies piled up in big sleepy puppy piles.

An hour of that, and I feel much better.

If your head, like mine, is exploding from reading comments about how we should all ‘give Michael Bryant the benefit of the doubt’, gaze on the following photos of these nice, short coated, bully breed puppies, and join me in saying a prayer of thanks that the murderous asshole in question never managed to include us in his stupid ban. Then say another prayer for all of the dogs who were included, and who’ve died as a result of it.

Then look at some more puppies, and smile.

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