Editor, The News:
Re: Former Pitt mayor wants specific breed ban (The News, Oct. 7).
First of all, I would like to send my deepest condolences to the family of Buttons. I can only imagine what you must be going through. It would devastate me if anything like this happened to one of my dogs.
However, I must point out two important things.
Firstly, the article is about a bull mastiff attacking Buttons, and the former mayor wanting specific breed ban.
On what? Bull mastiffs? A bull mastiff has absolutely nothing to do with any of the pitt breeds.
Bull mastiffs are large dogs, known as the gentle giants. There are French mastiffs, Neapolitan mastiffs, English mastiffs and so on.
Is the former mayor suggesting that he wants to ban mastiffs? He should watch Turner and Hootch. That is a mastiff.
Bull mastiffs are not aggressive dogs, never have been, never will be. If it was a bull mastiff that killed poor Buttons, then it was definitely a one-off.
I am against any breed-specific ban. But if we are going to ban mastiffs, we may as well just ban all dogs over 15 pounds.
Secondly, I would like to know why, in a country that opposes the death penalty, a country where child murderers continue to live, are we proposing there should be one for dogs?
Are we then saying that we should hold dogs to a higher moral standard than ourselves?
Should dogs know better than to kill another dog more so than humans should know better than to kill another human?
A man tortures, molests, and kills a child and is allowed to live.
A dog kills another dog because of instinct, poor socialization, some unknown dog reason, and that dog should die?
Someone really needs to explain to me how this makes sense.
Are dogs supposed to be smarter than us, have better judgement than us, understand consequences better than us, display better self-control than us?
Sometimes animal behaviour cannot be explained. Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes they just act like animals and do things on instinct. God forbid. Kill them all.
Magdalena Romanow
Maple Ridge