Montreal artist teams up with SPCA to counter anti-pit bull sentiment

Canada September 11, 2016 4:27 pm
Montreal artist teams up with SPCA to counter anti-pit bull sentiment
Felicia Parrillo
As you stroll past the Montreal SPCA, chances are you’ll encounter many different types of dogs, but now you’ll come face to face with a brand new one.
As promised, Montreal artist Jean Labourdette has created a second pit bull mural.
This time it’s plastered on a wall of the Montreal SPCA building. The organization has repeatedly spoken out against the city’s proposed pit bull ban.
“We’re using science – we’re putting the facts out there, we’re obviously talking to the media as well, just putting information out there,” Alanna Devine, from the Montreal SPCA, said. “But this is communicating through art, it shows there are other ways. The Montreal SPCA wants to be part of that solution.”
Earlier in the week, the SPCA announced that if a city-wide ban is adopted, as of 2017, they’ll no longer provide dog-control services to the nine Montreal boroughs and three other on-island municipalities it serves.
The animal protection agency said the bylaw would force them to put down healthy dogs – a practice they won’t participate in.
“The legislation specifically stipulates that any quote, unquote, pit bull type dog, which as is drafted is so huge,” Devine said. “It could mean any dog with short fur, a big head and a muscular body cannot be placed in adoption. So those dogs would be condemned to death.”
To help people see those dogs in a different light, Labourdette stepped in, once again.
By creating a mural on the SPCA’s wall, he hopes it will transmit a different message to the one being put out by the city.


“There is a huge proportion of pit bull type dogs who are just good dogs and millions and millions of them who haven’t hurt someone and never will,” he said.
In the past, the Coderre administration has repeatedly stated that this bylaw is being put in place to ensure the safety of its citizens.
But Labourdette said the proposed legislation is flat out racism.
“The very sad thing right now is that a lot of dogs will be put to death only based on their physical appearance,” he said.
Labourdette told Global News he’s already gotten calls from other SPCAs and veterinarians in the city requesting he paint them a mural as well.
He’s not sure he’ll get them all done before mayor Denis Coderre seeks city council’s approval for the pit bull ban on September 26, but he promises, if the bylaw passes, he’ll continue to fill up walls like this one across the city.

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