‘They should go after the owner’: London council considers motions to protect animals

A city council committee will consider a pair of motions next week to protect pets. CTV London’s Bryan Bicknell with the details.

A London City Council committee will consider a pair of motions next week to protect pets, and to protect people and pets from dogs that have shown themselves to be aggressive.

“Well, I mean there aren’t any bad dogs, but bad owners, that’s the problem,” said dog owner Juergen Reichert, who was enjoying Greenway Off-leash dog park with his Scottish Terrier, Benny, on Friday.

“They should go after the owner, because the dog, any dog … You know we used to have a rottweiler. He was the sweetest dog in the whole neighbourhood. Everybody loved him, because that’s the way we raised him,” he explained.

City councillors David Ferreira and Skylar Franke will on Monday put forward a motion that would target dangerous dogs. But it’s not to be confused with legislation that targets specific breeds, said Franke.

“My understanding is breed-specific bans are not that effective,” she said.

Under the proposal, city staff would be directed to come up with a bylaw that would place more stringent controls on dogs that have been deemed to be dangerous.

“So, this is looking at behaviours with aggressive dogs. So, we want to strike a balance of trying to provide education and communication in order to have dogs participate more properly in the community,” said Franke.

Franke says the motion follows concerns raised by several constituents, as well as an online petition calling for the city to take action against dangerous dogs. The petition calls for measures such as mandatory training and larger fines.

Dog owner Jessica Pease says she would support new rules in principle, as long as they don’t single out specific breeds.

“That would make sense to me, as far as dogs with a history. We actually had an incident where one of our dogs was bitten by another dog. And the owner gave us a fake ID so we could never track down the guy,” said Pease.

In the meantime, Ferriera and Franke are putting forward a second pet-related motion – this one dealing with pets left in hot cars.

According to Franke, as of mid-July, London police had responded to 60 such incidents to date this year. She says it uses up police resources, and costs local taxpayers in what’s supposed to be provincial jurisdiction.

“We want to, again, have a better way of addressing this, and especially if we have bylaw officers and London Police Services going to these calls, we want to be able to recoup the cost of that, and we don’t have a method right now to do that,” explained Franke.

The two motions will be considered by council’s Community and Protective Services Committee Monday.