Pit bull ban, moving season put pressure on SPCA

Group finds owners for most of its cats, but looking beyond Quebec to place dogs

One of Montreal’s biggest dog shelters is being hit by a perfect storm.

With the moving season at hand, thousands of Montrealers will abandon their pets when they change apartments this summer. Though this happens every year between May and September, this moving season will be even harder for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Under the rules outlined by Montreal’s pit bull ban now in effect, the SPCA is struggling to find homes for the dogs that get dropped off at its door every day.

“We’re very limited because the large majority of dogs we take in cannot be adopted into homes within the city,” said Alanna Devine, the SPCA’s director of animal advocacy. “The city’s definition of what constitutes a ‘pit bull-type dog ’ is so broad that we no longer place any dogs over 10 kilograms with a family in Montreal.”

Throughout most of the spring and summer, the SPCA takes in about 1,600 animals each month compared to the 600 it receives in fall and winter months. The group has managed to find new owners for most of the cats it houses but the need to place dogs has the SPCA looking beyond Quebec’s borders.

Since the ban was instituted last October, the SPCA has shipped 134 dogs out of province and into places like Vermont, Nova Scotia, Alberta and British Columbia. Devine says it’s impossible to know how many of those dogs violated the bylaw.

For its part, the city argues that the rules outlining pit bull ownership are clear. Since October of last year, its illegal for residents to adopt or breed American pit bull terriers, American Staffordshire terriers, Staffordshire bull terriers or any mix of those breeds.

The rules also include any dogs that present characteristics of those breeds.

Mayor Denis Coderre pushed for the ban after a 55-year-old woman was mauled to death in her backyard in Pointe-aux-Trembles last year.

Coderre insists he’s a dog lover but that his administration “puts humans before dogs.”

A number of studies dispute the effectiveness of breed-specific bans, pointing to other factors as contributing to fatal attacks — like whether a dog is neutered and whether its owner is abusive.

At the SPCA, the ban means that dogs like Jack, found by SPCA investigators chained to a balcony last spring without food or water, will linger in the shelter for much longer than they would have before the bylaw was passed.

Now Jack has become a sort of mascot at the SPCA; he spends much of his time chasing a neon Frisbee and begging for belly rubs as he wanders across the shelter’s halls. When he finally sinks his teeth into the toy, Jack prances around and refuses to give it up until he’s done showing off.

Despite his incorrigible hubris, Jack seems like an ideal pet; he’s affectionate, playful and good with children. And while Devine says it’s impossible to know exactly what breed he is, the dog looks enough like a pit bull that they can’t safely place him within the city.

“A dog like this, usually he’d be gone in a flash; he’s adorable, he’s sweet, he’s neutered and vaccinated,” she said. “But it’s taking us some time to find him a home. We will, don’t get me wrong, but a shelter is no place for a dog to live.”

We’re very limited because the large majority of dogs we take in cannot be adopted into homes within the city.