[driveway]

Ontario Ban on "pitbulls" has proven to be totally ineffective at reducing the number of dog bites.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2527882/to...tes-than-ever/

In 2005, in the wake of disturbing dog attacks, Ontario passed a law designed to permanently remove pit bulls — and dogs that looked like them — from the province. ... Under the law, four breeds (pit bull terriers, American Staffordshire terriers, Staffordshire bull terriers and American pit bull terriers) had to be kept muzzled or leashed in public and sterilized within two months of the bill’s passage. It also became illegal to import them into the province.
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The law certainly succeeded in cutting bites by the four affected breeds — Toronto recorded only 19 in 2014, down from 112 in 2005.
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What it hasn’t succeeded in doing is reducing the total number of dog bites (though it looked that way for a time). Toronto’s reported dog bites have been rising since 2012, and in 2013 and 2014 reached their highest levels this century, even as pit bulls and similar dogs neared local extinction.
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“I’m not surprised at all by those statistics,” says Parkdale-High Park MPP Cheri DiNovo, an opponent of breed-specific bans. “I would think they were inevitable.”

DiNovo favours a system more like Calgary’s, where officials avoided breed-based bans while promoting education of dog owners and children, combined with enforcement. Bites in Calgary have dropped dramatically since the mid-1980s.

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By 2012, the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association estimated that the law had led to over 1,000 dogs and puppies in Ontario having been needlessly put down.