A Sad Day!

Supreme Court will not hear appeal of Ontario's pit bull ban
By THE CANADIAN PRESS – 5 hours ago
OTTAWA —

The Supreme Court of Canada said Thursday it will not hear a bid to quash Ontario's ban on pit bulls.

The attempt to take the fight to Canada's highest court was launched in April by a
Toronto dog owner represented by lawyer Clayton Ruby. "That's the end of the
legal attack, but it remains a bad law, a terrible law," Ruby said in an
interview.

In his submission to the Supreme Court, Ruby argued there is no
scientific or statistical basis to conclude that pit bulls are more dangerous
than other dogs. He asked the Supreme Court to review a decision from
Ontario's Appeal Court last October that upholds the province's ban.

The high court decided Thursday that it would not hear the appeal.
The Ontario Appeal Court concluded that pit bulls are dangerous and unpredictable dogs that have the potential to attack without warning.The Ontario government enacted the Dog Owners' Liability Act in 2005 to ban the breeding, sale and ownership of pit bulls after several incidents in which the dogs attacked people.

When the law was enacted, pit bulls that were already pets in the province were grandfathered and allowed to stay with owners, but with strict rules.
As a result, many owners have opted to give up their dogs and the animals are ultimately euthanized, Ruby said."The dogs are winding up in the shelters, the shelters can't keep the dogs forever and they kill them," he said.
The challenge was launched on behalf of Ruby's client, Catherine Cochrane.

The Supreme Court also ordered the woman to pay the costs associated with her application to take the case to the high court.
Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights
reserved.

Gentle Tiger wins Animal Courage Award

Tiger is an exceptional example of a pit bull’s resiliency and capacity for love, and we were proud to see him win the BC SPCA Animal Courage Award on May 29.

Last summer in the community of Trail, Tiger was doused with gasoline and set on fire, suffering severe burns on 30% of his body including his face, nose, legs and ear. The local SPCA rushed to the scene and provided emergency treatment to a dog in unthinkable pain. He was then transferred to Vancouver for months of recovery, including the amputation of his badly damaged right ear and treatment for open wounds.

Throughout a difficult recovery, everyone who met Tiger was won over by his sweet and gentle nature. By September the SPCA determined he was ready for a forever home, but they knew it had to be the right one. They turned to HugABull, whose screening processes and support could ensure that Tiger was matched with a family that would care for his physical and emotional scars.

That family was Monica and Tom Bodie of Victoria. At the time, they were mourning the death of their 12-year-old pit bull, Pluto, whom they’d also rescued from an abusive former guardian. Monica and Tom thought that taking care of Tiger would be a wonderful way to fill their house with love once again, and honour Pluto’s memory.

Tiger’s injuries have healed and with his new loving parents, he has a new lease on life. “We are so impressed with his gentle and sweet disposition,” says Tom, “especially given how abused he was. We think he is absolutely stunning, scars and all.” Monica, Tom, and HugABull director Kristen attended the SPCA ceremony where Tiger shared dinner at the table, received his award on stage, and made friends with everyone in attendance. Congratulations Tiger, Tom and Monica!

Tiger poses with Monica, Tom and Danielle from the Trail SPCA, one of the first officers on scene for Tiger's rescue.

BCSPCA OPEN HOUSE

Thank you to Shelagh for manning our booth this weekend at the BCSPCA Open House and a huge thank you to volunteers Kayte, Jim & Jeff for coming out and helping to spread the HugABull word. Great job everyone!

Congratulations

To Sugar & Danielle and Maggie & Kayte for passing your

Canine Good Neighbour Test. We are very proud of you all.

Meeting a stranger with a dog. Look at that focus!

Sugar happy to pass her CGN test!

EVERYBODY & THEIR DOG WALK

Don't forget to join HugABull at Everybody & Their Dog Walk tomorrow at Elk Lake.

The event starts at 10:00am please stop by and say hello to the HugABull Crew we would be happy to see you.

Watch HugABull Alumni Maggie and her mom Kayte along with Sugar and her mom Danielle go for their Canine Good Neighbour Certificate. We are rooting for you we know you can do it.

Richmond... on the right track!

This is a little late, but again better late than never.

Last month HugABull was invited to attend the Richmond Animal Protection Society's Bully Breed Awareness Day.

It was a GREAT event, good turn out and I think we reached a few people.

Richmond is a municipality with some very strict BSL and unlike some municipalities with BSL Richmond does enforce it and will hand out $1000 tickets for anyone who is caught walking their bully without a muzzle. Let hope that together with RAPS we can change this.

Thank you to the crew at RAPS for inviting us, we had a great time and met some wonderful new friends. Here are some pictures from that great day.

Welcome to Bully Breed Awareness Day

Pictures say a thousand words

Visiting with the crowd

Our Booth

Jeff and his new friend

Chatting with our fans

Our supporters, thanks for coming guys!

HugABullers

Hurray For Jane!!!

It took a while for Sweet Jane to find her forever home but like the saying goes, "All good things come to those who wait" and boy did we all wait. We just knew this amazing little dog would get her dream home, problem was we just didn't know when.

Jane entered our program back in 2006, she joined us from Washington DC, after she was abandoned with a couple of her pups. Once the pups were placed the Washington Shelter didn't know what to do with Jane, they were getting no interest in her and with more adoptable dogs lining the kennels Jane's time they thought could be numbered. They decided to contact HugABull to see if we might be of some help.

Once Jane was in our program it didn't take long for her to get noticed by a young family. They fell in love and Jane went to her new home, all was sun shine and roses until January of 2008, when we got an email informing us that the family was moving and could not take Jane with them. Poor Jane was once again looking for a home.

The second time around Jane was going to have to wait.

Jane was placed in foster care where her foster dad worked very hard with her on manners both in and out of the house. Jane weighed no more than 40 pounds, a pocket pit with her weight in love for people, but not so much other dogs. Because of Jane's issues with other dogs, we knew the city was not going to be a place where Jane would be happy, she needed to be where she could be alone with just her family and guests, but in the meantime lots of practice out and about in the big city was good for Jane.

A year and 4 months later, Jane was still in foster care, then came Wendy! A manager of a large horse breeding organization with a 100 achers out in the Valley. Jane and Wendy met, walked, ran, met the horses and all the while we held our breath, praying please be the one!

less then a month later.... a couple updates from Jane's mom.

Hi, Jane has been off leash for 3 days now and keeps closer and closer to me. She runs so hard she is cutting the grass. Unfortunately she has learned the joy of sliding through nice soft horse pies from them being on grass.So now we go for our walk and stop at the barn in the wash rack and have a bath.She smelt so bad I could smell her from 10 feet away.She was excellent for her bath and lots of hot water and soap took care of the problem.Tonight she didn't even bother going in with the horses.We have a shed up top that has a lot of rats so tomorrow we are heading there as I'm sure she will help with the problem.She is the best dog I could of ever adopted.Thankyou so much again

Tonight was a great night.Normally I don't let Jane off leash till we are out across the bridge but today when we came back she came all the way home off leash.I told her to keep close when we came across the bridge and she stuck right by my left heel.Do you think she had learned a lot more in another life.If I stopped she would sit down beside me.It was unbelievable.She is so smart.Someone at some point must of taught her to heal.If you had seen her you would of been so proud.I was.When we are out back by the horses I tell her to lay down and stay and then I will walk off about a 100 yards and then call her.She does it perfect every time even if she is laying by the fence and horses come up to her.She is getting better all the time.Thankyou again for all the trouble you went to getting us together.Hope to have pictures soon.

Wendy

Running off leash on a 100 achers all of her own with a mom that loves her... this is more than we could have ever imagined.

Thank you to Wendy who opened her heart and home to this sweet, loving but sadly overlooked young lady. We know that for the rest of Jane's days she is going to running free, happy and safe and that is all we could have ever wanted for our Sweet Jane.