After a few strokes of a legal pen, the District of Metchosin is prepared to enact a new Animal Control Bylaw that is designed to reduce dog-related conflict while still allowing dogs to be off-leash.
After unanimous approval by council Oct. 23, the bylaw, which has been signed off by the district’s lawyers, will come into force after final reading at council on Monday.
“It’s pretty exciting because it’s been a long process, through the change of council and all the rest of it,” said Pattie Whitehouse, chair of the Dogs in Metchosin Working Group, which was created three years ago to advise the district on the new bylaw.
“Metchosin council is to be commended for choosing a proactive, solution-based approach to address concerns about off-leash dogs directly but fairly, in contrast to the reactive, restriction-based approach chosen by other local councils.”
The centrepiece of the new bylaw is a definition of what constitutes a dog under control. The definition was devised by the working group.
The definition included in the bylaw specifies that dogs must not approach other users of public places without explicit permission; must return to their handlers immediately when called; must not chase wildlife or livestock; and must always be within the handler’s sight.
“I think that everybody would like it if dogs were under control,” said Whitehouse, who noted the group took the approach of examining the complaints made about dogs being off-leash and asking “what could dog handlers be doing that would avoid those things happening?”
“You will never get 100 per cent resolution, but when people understand what is required of them, what responsible dog stewardship means, they’re more likely to comply and the degree of conflict is likely to be reduced,” she said.
The bylaw includes new signs and suggestions for public education.
Whitehouse said it was all about trying to find balance between public safety and the need dogs have to be able to get off-leash.
“It can make a huge difference to their mental and emotional health, but they must be under control for their own safety as well as for the safety of everybody else,” she said.
The working group included dog trainers, professional handlers, and those who compete with their dogs both locally and internationally.
Whitehouse said the group heard from only one community member who had pushed for all dogs to be on-leash.
“And it was quite understandable; her granddaughter was knocked over on the beach into the water by a big dog who was not under control,” said Whitehouse, who stressed that is why they came up with a definition of dogs under control.
The new bylaw also contains new definitions for aggressive dogs, dangerous dogs, habitually noisy dogs and what constitutes a leash.
Aggressive is defined as a dog that, without justifiable provocation, displayed aggressive behaviour or caused minor injury toward a person or domestic animal; dangerous dogs are those that have killed or seriously injured a person or domestic animal; and habitually noisy is a dog that barks, cries, howls or emits any other sounds continuously for more than 10 minutes and has done so more than 10 times within 30 days.
A leash in Metchosin is a line or chain that does not exceed 1.3 metres in length, whether retractable or not.
