I want to give a shout out to Halifax Bully Breeds! I enjoyed joining your peaceful protest walk against BSL. Below is a link of the walk making it to the news! I was excited to see Roxie in a couple clips!
As many may know, I work with puppies, mild mannered dogs, and aggressive dogs (of any breed)! I have worked with dogs scheduled to be put to sleep that now have loving homes with structure and education best suited for the dog. This is how I personally counter BSL:
I’m not for BSL because it doesn’t make logical sense to ban an entire breed based on a vague description of appearance and not of the individual dog’s behavior. I’m sure there are many other professional trainers who would agree here. If we continue this way of thinking, it wouldn’t be long before they are banning any breed of dog over a certain weight and description. We need to stop focusing on what a dog looks like and focus on the dog’s actual behavior.
I think with owning a dog that people always need to be proactive about their dog’s behavior. When you look at different breeds, there are general characteristics that you will see as well. Let me give one example: If you get a Rottweiler or Doberman, you may, at some point have to work with your dog’s resource guarding, whether its food, bone, toy, person, house, object, territory or all the above. You can generally see this between 8 weeks to 2 years or any time, really! This is your dog’s genetic make-up that should not be ignored! This is something I see in many of the ‘rotties’ and ‘dobes’ I have worked with, including my own in the past and present. I have also worked with this very issue with other breeds as well, including labs! It takes a pro-active owner to keep this in check! If you don’t want to ‘deal’ with certain characteristics, veer away from a dog that generally carries them.
If you see something that you are not sure of or questionable, go get him/her assessed by a professional who works with dog-aggression on a regular basis, and understands psychology and behavior to find out what the next steps are to preventing possible bad behavior down the road. Those with dogs who are proven dangerous should be penalized for not taking the proper action to keep people and animals in their environment, safe. This isn’t just about “pit bulls”, this is about any breed that may have higher drive and requires more boundary and structure in their life to keep them in a good and safe mind set.
I feel that if we can do more education seminars on bite prevention talks at schools, veterinarians and medical first responder(s), this would be a great start into having people more aware of basic dog behavior and communication, because any dog can bite!
Next, we need to have responsible, pro-active owners having more control of their animals, a base of obedience is key, and safety is number one! Any dogs with a bite history should be muzzled when in public or possible interaction with other people or animals. Dogs with any behavior issues need to be evaluated by a professional, and proactive steps to prevent it must be taken. This will start to decrease the amount of dogs biting people, and dogs biting other animals.
Click on the link below for the Atlantic News Coverage:
http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=963827
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