Aggressive dog behaviour preventable with ‘adequate training’: Calgary Humane Society

There has been no shortage of controversy surrounding pit bulls — they’ve been dubbed violent, unpredictable and have been banned in several countries around the world — but when it comes to aggressive dog behaviours, they aren’t the only breed getting a bad rap.

The Calgary Humane Society say they are still seeing an unusually high amount of surrenders, because many dog owners seem to be in over their heads.

On Monday, a Calgary dog owner was sentenced to pay a fine and has been banned from owning a pet for 15 years after an attack that led to the death of an 86-year-old woman.

The woman was gardening in the alley of her northwest Calgary home when she was mauled by three pit bulls. The Calgary Humane Society tells CityNews the attack was tragic, unfortunate and could have been totally preventable with proper training.

Brad Nichols, director of operations and enforcement with the humane society, says it’s not a one size fits all problem when it comes to dog breeds.

“I wouldn’t tie specific behaviours to specific breeds,” he says. “Granted, some animals are going to be stronger than others, and some are going to have a stronger bite threshold.”

“But that said, any animal is capable of aggression.”

The humane society has seen their canine population grow 205 per cent over the past two years. The organization says the increase in pet surrenders boils down to inadequate training and poor socialization.

“These are a group of animals that have learned largely through absence and fear,” says Anna-Lee Fitzsimmons, the organization’s director of public relations. “We always want to make sure we are training our animals with positive messages and humane messages.”

“We want them to be doing things because they want to do them, because they are excited about the outcome.”

She says ideally training should happen within the first 20 weeks of a dog’s life, but adds that it’s never too late to teach an old dog new tricks.

Fitzsimmons says the humane society will typically find animals with behavioural issues a foster home with another resident dog.

“Just making sure that everytime they are interacting with other animals the experience is positive,” she says. “Because they’ve otherwise learned the experience to be quite fearful.”

The Calgary Humane Society offers pre and post-adoption support as well as behavioural classes on common dog reactivity and fear-based behaviours.