[onetwo_threefour]

I'm not in favour of breed bans, partially because they simply ignore the fact that any dog can cause significant damage and partially because they unfairly demonize a particular subset of dogs based on a series of incidents that are largely the result of poor ownership rather than an inherent breed problem.

Having said that, I would be okay with a mandatory muzzle law within urban areas for breeds that are inherently able to cause more damage, whether the breed itself has a history of aggression or not, and for specific dogs that have any history of altercations/agression with either people or other dogs. Perfect example of this, several years ago I owned a Bernese Mountain Dog which is a big dog with a big mouth, not known for aggression. For the first few years of his life he was very sweet and we never had any indication of aggression. Fairly soon after he turned four, we noticed that he was becoming more aggressive around other dogs and even myself and my wife especially surrounding food possessiveness. We started muzlling him at the offleash park, which helped a lot and tried to discover the problem, which we didn't. Ultimately he died about six months later after losing massive amounts of weight in a few weeks, and although we never got a firm diagnosis, it was suspected to be a brain tumour or other cancer and we susepct that the aggression came from the pain he was in but otherwise hid very well. (as they do)

The point of the story is that it was a responsible step to start muzzling him in my opinion and it was his behaviour that led to the decision, not his breed. People who object to muzzling as being inhumane are out to lunch in my opinion. It is a fair balance between the rights of dogs and dog owners and public safety in an increasingly dense urban environment where dogs enounter unknown people and dogs on a regular basis and there is less certainty about how even a reasonbably well-trained animal will react in any given stressful encounter.