Breed Specific Legislation is alive and well in Nova Scotia

If you thought that bsl was not in Nova Scotia - you were wrong.

I had thought it only existed in 3 places - the district of the municipality of Guysborough - the home of the inimitable Lloyd Hines - the County of Antigonish, and the county of Richmond - but we found out on Facebook today that the town of Digby also has bsl - and it`s enforced whenever they feel like enforcing it.

(As a side note - I never got to read what the town of Yarmouth finally worked out when they redid their dog bylaw - so it may or may not have bsl in it - I don't know - and I haven't been able to bring it up on my computer all night tonight for some reason)

Here is what the current mayor of Digby - Mayor Ben Cleveland - said on his Facebook page about the subject:

"Thanks for your comments... most recognize that the owners of pets are the problem, and those people need to be educated on proper care in order to become responsible owners .. until then, the Residents of the Town put forward this by-law. It is unfortunate that there was incident recently in Digby that lead to a child requiring hospital care after being bitten by one of the breeds mentioned so it will remain to be seen whether they will like to have the by-law appealed."

So as you can see - bsl is going nowhere in the town of Digby.

So Nova Scotia is not a bsl free province - and we have some work to do when it comes to educating the people we have in power - or removing those people who are in power. One or the other.

One thing I do have to say about Digby though is that when I was researching for this blog post I found a link to some minutes where a decision was made to give $1,000 so that funding could be provided to have cats "spaded/neutered" - their spelling, not mine - so they do care about animal welfare in Digby obviously when it is negatively impacting them - they just need to be directed in a more enlightened way that's safer for humans and for dogs - because as we all know bsl is definitely not the way to go.

ps - this all started because a facebook friend of mine was doing due diligence - she was planning on moving to Digby with her family - and she owns dobermans - so she was looking up the dog bylaw in Digby to make sure it was okay to move there and was shocked by what she found.

Some people who lived there didn't even know that the bsl existed in the bylaw - other people said that it wasn't enforced - and I told her that if it was on the books - then she could not take a chance - some asshole could come into power and her dogs would be dead - and sure enough when she posted on the Mayor's facebook page - he confirmed that the bylaw is in fact enforced - so this is a perfect case of doing your research - because if she'd moved there and THEN found out about the bsl - and a problem happened - what could she have done then? She'd have been screwed.

And this is in Nova Scotia TODAY! HERE in NOVA SCOTIA. Today. With doberman pinschers. Not even the illustrious pit bulls. In Digby - all these dogs are considered fierce and dangerous - Rottweiler, Bull Mastiff, Doberman, or Staffordshire Bull Terrier or Pit Bull Terrier dog(or a hybrid Rottweiler, Bull Mastiff, Doberman, Staffordshire bull terrier or Pit-bull terrier).

Another interesting note is that this applies only in the town of Digby - the municipality of the District of Digby has no bsl - so if you don't bring your dog into town - you are SAFE.

Here is a link to the town of Digby's bylaw