Woman killed by pit bull
Mayor Denis Coderre’s remarks come on the heels of the death of Christiane Vadnais, 55, attacked and killed by a pit bull on June 8th in her own backyard in the Pointe-aux-Trembles area of the city.
Ms. Vadnais was killed by a neighbor’s pit bull. A concerned citizen saw through a fence what appeared to be an aggressive pit bull over the body of a woman and called police. Officers had to shoot the dog dead in order to recover the body of Vadnais, who was dead before they arrived and likely before the citizen spotted the dog standing over her body.
As CBC News said Saturday, the ban will not be the same as a more strident ban that owners of pit bulls now face in Quebec City. In that city a ban recently enacted states that all pit bulls must be out of the city by January.
Pit bull ban: not outright
Mayor Coderre says Montreal owners will be able to keep existing pit bulls and other dogs designated as dangerous, but there will be conditions. But once the by-law is in place acquiring a pit bull will be against the law.
“I’m not comfortable to say that if we ban a breed, the current owners will have to get rid of their dogs, Mayor Coderre said. “Because you have good owners and you have good dogs, but it demands a balanced approach.”
Existing owners of put bulls will be able to keep their pets by registering them and spaying or neutering them. They will even be able to take their dogs into the public, but only if they are wearing a muzzle.
Pit bull escapes home
Vadnais was killed by her neighbors dog, a dog the owner claims must have escaped after he left for work as he insists he had properly shut it inside his home. So had the proposed ban been in place the attack on Vadnais could still have occurred.
That is because given the dog was alleged to have been in the home and escaped, it would not have been required to be muzzled at the time. In North America and elsewhere there have been other recorded attacks by pit bulls that had been shut in their homes and yet managed to escape and kill.
The male owner of the dog, 27, may be charged.
Statistics compiled by DogsBite.org reveal that on average between January of 2006 and December of 2008, a person in the United States was killed by a pit bull every 21 days. There are bans on pit bulls in dozens of communities all over the world.
