On October 3, Montreal will put into effect a “Pit bull ban” in response to the attack and killing of a local woman by a dog that police identified as “Pit bull." The term “Pit bull” is typically imperfect, as it slang-term that covers many different breeds, but the bylaw defines it as every Staffordshire bull terrier, American Pit bull terrier, American Staffordshire terriers, as well as any dog that exhibits any mix or quality of these breeds. Denis Coderre, a politician from Quebec, however, defined the selection of the title of “pit bulls” as a means to, “…have an applied strategy, not just for one breed, but based on the level of potential danger of several types of dogs”. The ban entails the forced muzzling, fining and sterilization for dogs with homes, and the banning of adoption, in favor of euthanizing, for those in shelters. However, even the dogs who do have an owner still aren’t safe from the lethal injection as, after the owner’s death, they can be euthanized too. As well as loosely labeling a wide variety of dogs under these circumstances, the dogs are also to be labeled as either “at-risk” or “dangerous”. At-risk meaning those who exhibit aggressive behavior, and dangerous being those who are simply deemed “dangerous” by an “expert." On Tuesday, however, an amendment was created where a pit bulls, whose owners has died, may be permitted to live if a direct family contact can obtain their license for the dog. It’s small, but it’s a start.
But it’s still pretty disgusting to think that a legally binding document declares the death and mistreatment of thousands of dogs. How mighty do we think we humans are in that just because we have the means, we believe we have the natural right to commit and permit actions that we know are wrong? Although I can’t speak on behalf of Canada, as I’m American, I think this really reflects human nature within a society. For Americans, this idea of systematically confining, stigmatizing and eliminating an entire group is not new. Which is probably why we are so disgusted to hear about this ban as it reflects undertones that still haunt our society: the killing of innocent beings for the empowerment or “protection” of us.
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However, as I said, this is in Canada and I cannot speak for Canada. But, I can speak for the human heart. We already believe all animals to be sub-servant to us and, fundamentally, this law resonates strongly within this deep and disturbing part of human mentality, as it’s the literal exhibition of our desire to be the strongest beings in nature. The woman who was killed should not have died, but the extremist reaction to this doesn’t reflect the understanding of why the tragedy occurred, like cyclic abuse of dogs to raise them to be aggressive, but rather the failure of humans to even try to be empathetic to a species that doesn’t communicate like we do.
Now just imagine what we permit ourselves to do to other humans since we seem OK with enslavement and murder of an entire breed of innocent animals.
If this sickens you, sign these petitions and hopefully we can make right one of our great injustices as human beings:
https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/my-montr%C3%A9al-includes-all-dog.html
https://www.change.org/p/nyc-pit-bull-group-montreal-banned-pit-bulls-so-we-ban-montreal
