Let the Blight of BSL die as loudly and violently as Lennox

Dog lovers, advocates, and mainstream media today came together to acknowledge that the Belfast City Council in Northern Ireland killed a dog who had done nothing other than be born with a wide forehead, stubby nose and wide smile.

His name was Lennox and for 5 years he lived unremarkably with his owners until one day he was seized by the city of Belfast because of the way he looked. In the next two years lots of reasons were concocted as to why he neeed to be killed other than the original reason why he was seized - but they are all just subterfuge. He was killed simply because he was labelled as a pit bull type dog.

And that is wrong. Hundred's of thousand's of people around the world heard his story and declared from the roof tops that it was wrong.

Famous people - Victoria Stillwell - even Cesar Millan - offered to take Lennox off of Belfast City Council's hand if only they'd free him.

But they refused - and today they killed him, despite hundreds of thousands of people around the world watching them.

Millions of hours have been spent trying to save this one dog - Lennox - and meanwhile, every day - literally thousands of dogs are dying because of breed specific legislation that exists around the world.

Here in Canada the whole province of Ontario strictly enforces exactly the same legislation - and routinely kills all pit bull type dogs that they encounter.

Canada is equally as bad as the Belfast City Council - here in Nova Scotia - we have several areas where breed specific legislation exists. Did you know that you cannot legally take a pit bull type dog into Cape Breton without passing over an area where they are completely banned?

In order to get a pit bull type dog into Cape Breton - you MUST BREAK THE LAW!

Do you want to live in a world where bureaucrats and elected officials can cause so much suffering by enacting legislation that is absolutely heinous and wrong.

I don't want to live in that kind of a world.

I think the time has come to speak up - and for normal everyday dog owners to contact their elected officials and tell them that, as tax payers - archaic dog legislation has to be ended.

Better legislation exists - but government has refused to acknowledge it - legislation that targets dogs who are dangerous, rather than dogs who simply look a certain way (ie specific breeds) - is the only rational laws that should be enacted. These are laws who's time has come.

Janet Young over at "Reigning Cats and Dogs" posted an awesome blog post today called "10 reasons why every dog owner should care about bsl" - you should go read it, it's very pithy.

Today - every dog is Lennox - and it's not just pit bull type dogs who are Lennox - dogs like Buttercup and Bubby are also Lennox - maybe even more so, because they are dogs who should be the target of dog legislation - but they are lucky, because they have an owner who keeps then safe - and therefore keeps everybody around them safe.

Some days it seems like the world is really going to hell in a hand basket.