A Montreal 'pit bull'
The Canadian Kennel Club (CKC) is a federally accredited registry, whose job it is to protect pedigrees, keep breed standards, name breeds and ensure that purebred dogs are individually identified, among other things. They operate under the Pedigree Act. It occurs to me that they might help with a dog licensing problem whereby so many dogs are supposedly a particular breed they barely resemble.
What if the CKC, using its federal status, could insist that a dog licensed as, say, a Beagle, could only be listed that way if the owner presented a Registration Certificate from the CKC (or others with status in Canada, such as the AKC, UKC or ADBA)?
All other dogs would be simply mixed breeds.
Which is what they are.
Municipalities are touchy and like to protect their turf, so how about if they decided that this was how their system should work on their own? Got a German Shepherd Dog? Prove it, otherwise he's just a mutt.
That would certainly add to overall accuracy, which lately seems to be a bit of a problem.
In my experience, the absolute worst people at identifying what breed type a dog might be are people at pounds, shelters and in police departments. I suspect this is because they so rarely see purebred dogs. If you adopt a dog from a shelter he'll likely come with a breed designation of some sort, for reasons that are unclear. I see no reason for breed to be on a dog licence at all, but if it's deemed necessary, at least get it right.
Check out this article for a good laugh and then realize it's not so funny. If this dog bit somebody, it would be recorded as a 'pit bull' bite.
So, how about it Toronto? Are you ready to get real with your 'breed' designations in the licensing database?
Or better yet, why don't you just scrap the whole silly guess-the-breed policy? If my dog is licensed and microchipped, you don't need to know what 'breed' he is if you find him. His dog tag has my contact info attached to it. If it's lost, you can scan his chip.
I'll bet your licensing compliance would increase markedly if you did this.
Just sayin'.
Thanks to Brent for the link to CTV.
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