Lawyer fights order to have dangerous dog euthanized

A prominent Montreal lawyer was in court Thursday in an attempt to save a pit bull-type dog that attacked six people last summer from being put down.

Anne-France Goldwater argued the section of the municipal bylaw that orders a dog to be euthanized once declared dangerous contravenes provincial animal welfare legislation.

The Crown announced this week that there would be no criminal charges against the woman who was watching the dog when the attacks took place last August. She had agreed to take care of it when the owner had a medical emergency.

Goldwater asked the Quebec Superior Court to allow the dog named Shotta, who was seized after the attack, to be sent to a specialized refuge in New York, where it would be kept away from the public and never adopted to a home.

Goldwater, a prominent animal rights activist, acknowledged at the beginning of the hearing the animal in question had attacked people — including several children — and was “not the best of dogs.”

But she added it is often the most difficult cases that test the laws and rights society puts in place.

“Goldwater said the evidence demonstrated the dog in the current case wasn’t given a proper behavioural evaluation and its owner, who she represents, was shut out of the process.

She said a portion of the city’s animal control bylaw, which states that dogs must be put down after being deemed dangerous, should be declared “inoperative” because it contravenes provincial legislation that describes animals as “sentient beings” that have “biological needs.”