When are people going to learn that animals are not just fashion accessories?

Betty is not doing well. He went off his food last night and is neither eating or drinking. If it were not for his IV (antibiotics and pain medication) dehydration would be a real worry.

My morning navigation of the morass that is animal control in Canada was eye opening. The laws are not even consistent within a province, let alone the country, and a dog labelled dangerous and subject to immediate euthanization (no appeal, no anything) in one municipality cannot even have his record of aggression and unprovoked attack shared with other jurisdictions. So this dog (which was off leash off his own property--against the bylaws) and committed two unprovoked attacks on a restrained animal without any attempt of the owner to control him, can cross over the river to Ottawa without so much as a notation on his record. There is no way for the jurisdiction where the offense occurred to place a muzzle order on the dog: it is kill him or nothing. And even if they could, that order would cease to be in effect the moment the dog crossed municipal boundaries.

Most unsatisfactory of all is that the animal control authorities (animal control having been outsourced to the Humane Society or SPCA in most jurisdictions across Canada) has no interest in enforcing overly draconian laws (such as automatic and unappealable euthanasia orders) that run 180 degrees counter to their mandate. And where that is the only option available, that leaves the general public in a very uncomfortable position with an animal control enforcment department that will end up doing nothing.

I was very surprised to learn that no jurisdiction in Canada can impose mandatory obedience training (which trains both the dog and the owner) in the case of any animal bylaw infraction. I was also surprised to learn that by simply leaving a municipality, a dog's history becomes a complete blank. The owners of vicious or uncontrollable dogs will often leave an area of jurisdiction to avoid even having a pet muzzled, and the region that they move to will not even know that the animal newly introduced into their midst is dangerous.

Even more surprising, the same thing (a clean slate) is often accomplished just by changing a residence locally, getting a new vet and giving the animal a new name, or by handing the animal into the local Humane Society or SPCA under a new name, without divulging the animal's history of aggression, under some spurious pretext (such a new child with an allergy).

I now see why my friend Krys, and other responsible dog owners are so distressed by (not to say obsessive about) the pathetic state of animal bylaws in this country.

FYI: I could not get all the blood off my clothing.