New ban considered in Windsor

A little history first....Windsor was one of the first places to ban the APBT in Ontario Canada, long before Ontario banned them province wide.

Now they want to ban the sale of dogs and cats in pet stores. Not necessarily a bad thing considering where many of the animals come from, but it seems to be taking it another AR step closer to the eradication of pet ownership.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=027533e4-e23a-431b-90e3-70cc26c4993d&k=57703

Windsor may ban sales of cats, dogs in pet stores



Craig Pearson, CanWest News Service

Published: Saturday, August 18, 2007

WINDSOR, Ont. -- The city's licensing department is recommending that Windsor ban pet stores from selling dogs and cats.
That's one of four recommendations for stricter controls of pet stores in the report, which will be discussed Tuesday at a public licensing commission meeting. The licensing commission will then report to city council for the final decision.

John Roushorne, executive director of the Humane Society of Windsor-Essex County, thinks a ban would bring more people to the society to buy dogs and cats, thus reducing the number of animals euthanized every year.

"It's a crisis," said Roushorne, who has not heard of any other Ontario jurisdictions banning cat and dog sales in pet stores. "The cat situation is particularly disturbing."

In 2006, the humane society euthanized 223 dogs and 4,041 cats, a three per cent increase over 2005. But Roushorne notes that the humane society has not put down a healthy, adoptable dog since 2004, with the exception of pit bulls, which Windsor strictly limits.

Roushorne said pet stores often buy from puppy mills and kitten mills in the United States, where females are kept pregnant virtually year-round and where conditions are sub-standard.

The manager of at least one local pet store said his operation may leave town if Windsor bans the sale of cats and dogs on top of the bans already in place for reptiles, ferrets and chinchillas.

"It's like they're on a witch hunt for us," said Dennis Radosz, manager of Corbret's Pet Depot.

"It'll just create more so-called backyard breeding. I opened the Windsor Star today and there are hundreds and hundreds of puppies in four columns of the paper. We're just upset because nobody regulates them."

Windsor Star