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Originally Posted by Amethyst
Okay, there are too many pages since I was last here for me to read them all...
How many little old ladies are killed by dogs in Canada to say that it's always a pitbull? There are other breeds that could definitely kill a person, especially a vulnerable person, and if pitbulls didn't exist, those owners would have another "tough" breed instead, likely bred to look tough, without consideration for mental stability.
I agree that many people adopt dogs they can't handle and that shouldn't happen. I was involved in rescue for years and disagreed often with people who thought every dog needed to be saved and took on way more than they could handle. Sometimes humane euthanization is the right call.
And, hey, I'm all for special training or licenses, but how are you going to enforce that? Because the people who are the problem won't follow the rules unless someone makes them.
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IMO, the easiest thing to do would be to categorize dog breeds based on purpose, and only allow non-companion dog ownership to people with the proper licenses. So for example, if you own a farm, you can have border collies, shepherds, etc...If you are a police or guard service, you can have Dobbermans, Rottweilers etc...
If you live in a residential area and are looking for a companion dog, you can have ornamental dogs, golden retrievers, standard poodles, beagles, bulldogs, irish setters, Whippet, Dachshunds, Shibas, etc...In fact, there's literally hundreds of dog breeds that would be totally suitable for city life, that are not killing machines. It seems to be about 5-10% of the available dog breeds that cause the most trouble, as they are being used for the wrong purpose.
Under no circumstances should anyone be allowed to have a fighting dog. As dog fighting is now illegal, and those dogs serve no purpose anymore.
The biggest issue is that you might run into hard to identify dogs or mutts. It wouldn't be all that hard to set up some kind of screening process before a vet/city licenser though. Over time, the dangerous breeds would become totally dilute amongst the city dog stock.
Most cities already have mandatory licensing programs for dogs. I really don't see the process as all that different than enforcing requirements for what kind of vehicles are road legal.