The City of Montreal recently passed a law banning “pit bull type dogs.” Among numerous restrictions, the ban would have resulted in the euthanization of thousands of dogs residing in the city’s animal shelters.  

Learn more in the CLE Course, Doggy Due Process: Why Breed Discrimination Doesn’t Work (get 1.5 credits).

The ban, scheduled to go in effect in March of 2017, also states that pit bull owners who do not pass a background check, muzzle their dogs and pay a $150 fee would be forced to give up their pets. Shelters, however, would not have been able to take these dogs as it was deemed illegal to do so.  

On Oct. 5, after international backlash, online petitions with thousands of signatures and the aggressive work of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Judge Louis Gouin of the Quebec Superior Court suspended the ban “indefinitely,” citing the vagueness of the targeted dog and the potential overreach of the city in the seizure and euthanization of previously lawfully owned dogs.

A major issue with laws like these is ascertaining what constitutes a pit bull to begin with, since the term encompasses more than 70 different breeds of dogs. In fact, when questioned on which dogs the law would apply to, the city’s legal representative stated that a pit bull was “like pornography. You know it when you see it.”  

If that sounds extreme to you, that’s because it is.  

To learn more about laws like Montreal’s and to understand breed-discrimination legislation in the United States, check out Lawline’s “Doggy Due Process” with Best Friends Animal Society’s General Counsel Ledy VanKavage.