Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Over 230 pit bulls and Caribbean ter­ri­ers (pothounds) have been aban­doned across the coun­try since the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act was placed un­der re­view in May. This was re­vealed yes­ter­day by vice-pres­i­dent of An­i­mals Alive, Jow­elle De Souza, as she made an ap­peal to mem­bers of the pub­lic to stop aban­don­ing their dogs.

De Souza claimed some of the dogs (many of them feared pit bulls) have been left tied up and wound­ed in de­sert­ed cane­fields across south Trinidad. Oth­er pit bull pups were left astray along the M2 Ring Road, Gol­con­da. Eight pit bulls were seen at the An­i­mals Alive Sanc­tu­ary in Oropouche and sev­er­al oth­ers are be­ing kept at the homes of an­i­mal ac­tivists.

"We found one of the pit bulls chopped and we are beg­ging for this to stop. These are in­no­cent dogs," De Souza said. She made an ap­peal to Min­is­ter of Hous­ing, Ma­rine and Land Re­sources Dr Roodal Mooni­lal to pro­vide land to build a dog sanc­tu­ary in cen­tral Trinidad.

The An­i­mals Alive sanc­tu­ary at Ralph Nar­ine Trace, South Oropouche is filled to ca­pac­i­ty, with more than 400 dogs cur­rent­ly be­ing kept on the com­pound. "We can­not take in a sin­gle dog again be­cause the sanc­tu­ary is over­filled. We want own­ers to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their dog, which need to be spayed and neutered."

While she com­mend­ed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan for de­cid­ing to re­view the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act, De Souza said many dog own­ers have aban­doned their pets for fear of be­ing charged. "Dog own­ers should know that the act is be­ing re­viewed and what the AG has done is give us time to put prop­er mea­sures in place for our pets," De Souza said. She not­ed that the on­go­ing adop­tion fairs were not suc­cess­ful as few peo­ple were tak­ing in the stray an­i­mals.

De Souza called on Gov­ern­ment to part­ner with her or­gan­i­sa­tion to ed­u­cate the cit­i­zen­ry about an­i­mals. "Across the world, dogs and oth­er pets are be­ing used as a form of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion. Bar­ba­dos is first world, so what hap­pen to us? Why can't we be more hu­mane to our an­i­mals?" De Souza said.

Mean­while, Mooni­lal said he was will­ing to dis­cuss the con­struc­tion of an­oth­er sanc­tu­ary. "Once I get a pro­pos­al, I will be hap­py to re­view it," Mooni­lal said. In May, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har re­vealed that the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act was un­der re­view and its procla­ma­tion, set for Au­gust 1, was post­poned. He said the Prime Min­is­ter or­dered a re­view of the leg­is­la­tion ow­ing to con­cerns raised by dog own­ers.

Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act

Dogs banned are:

1) Pit bull ter­ri­er or any dog bred from a pit bull ter­ri­er

2) A Fi­la Brasileiro or any dog bred from a Fi­la Brasileiro

3) A Japan­ese Tosa or any dog bred from a Japan­ese Tosa.

How­ev­er, un­der the Act, the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is giv­en the pow­er to de­clare any oth­er type of dog as a dan­ger­ous dog. With­in three months of the Act com­ing in­to force, a per­son who owns a dan­ger­ous dog must have it spayed or neutered by a vet­eri­nary sur­geon, reg­is­ter it with the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment; and ap­ply for and get an an­nu­al li­cence from the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion in the area where he or she lives.

Fail­ure to ac­quire the $500 li­cence means that the per­son has com­mit­ted the sum­ma­ry of­fence of keep­ing or own­ing an un­li­cenced dan­ger­ous dog, for which there is a penal­ty of a $50,000 fine and im­pris­on­ment for one year. The Act al­so bans the im­por­ta­tion, breed­ing or sale of a dan­ger­ous dog and al­so pro­hibits a per­son un­der 18 from own­ing a dan­ger­ous dog. If a per­son can­not com­ply with any of the pro­vi­sions of the Act, he/she must give his/her dan­ger­ous dog to the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment which would then de­stroy it.