When Debbie Lloyd and her family moved to Whistler in 2013, she was relieved to see just how dog-friendly her new community was. "We saw the Valley Trail with all the signs saying to keep your dog on a leash, and I was thinking, 'Wow, this is amazing. People really are concerned about their dogs,'" she recalled.
Lloyd had every reason to be cautious at the time: the year before relocating, her then-seven-year-old cocker spaniel-Lhasa apso mix, Duke, was on leash in the yard of their Coquitlam home when he was mauled by two large, unleashed Bouviers, leading to serious injuries that required surgery.
The traumatizing incident understandably rattled both dog and owner, so when Lloyd saw how common it was for owners in Whistler to let their dogs off leash, she was wary of taking Duke out for walks on her own.
"Long story short, I actually quit walking Duke because it was too traumatizing for me to run across all these people on the Valley Trail and honestly, I would say to them, 'Would you please put your dog on a leash? I'm concerned about my dog,' and people would say to me, 'Oh, my dog is friendly' or 'He won't hurt your dog,' or they would say to me, 'What's going to happen? Is your dog going to bite my dog?' Crazy," she said.
You don't have to spend too much time on the Valley Trail or in one of Whistler's busier parks to recognize how persistent the issue is: simply put, off-leash dogs are everywhere—and a spate of recent incidents has some questioning whether the municipality is doing enough to curb the problem.
"At least three or four times, dogs have ran right at me and I jammed my brakes on at the last second not to hit the dog. I've seen it happen to a couple others, too. It happens all the time," said cyclist Anthony Trister, who often rides the Valley Trail with his two-year-old son in an infant seat.
"It's really the muni's fault," he added. "They're doing a very poor job, in my opinion."
On May 10, Lloyd said Duke, who, at 14, is now almost fully deaf, was attacked by a loose dog while he was sitting next to her and her husband on their patio abutting the Nicklaus North Golf Course.
"This gentleman came around the corner and a few feet behind him came his dog. His dog started coming up on the lawn towards us, so [my husband] yelled at the owner to come get his dog," said Lloyd, who added that the owner was "oblivious" to what was going on, as he had earphones in at the time.
Lloyd's husband eventually chased down the owner, but unaware of Duke's injuries, did not take down his information. Now they're stuck with a vet bill after Duke suffered a gash to his ear.
And while the stretch of Valley Trail adjacent to their home is a designated off-leash zone in the wintertime, Lloyd would like to see the area become leash-mandatory throughout the year.
"I would prefer year-round," she said.
Off-leash dogs can also pose a threat to bears, which have been plentiful this spring—on May 21, a sow bear and her cubs were relocated out of Bayshores as a result, in part, of repeated negative interactions with off-leash dogs, according to the Resort Municipality of Whistler.
"I think people should leash their dogs for a couple really important reasons: one is how busy the Valley Trail and our parks are right now, and secondly, we've got an increased number of bears in our community right now, and off-leash dogs are not a positive as we try and live in bear country," said Mayor Jack Crompton.
So far this year, there have been 12 complaints to the municipality about off-leash dogs, more than double the five complaints over the same period last year, prompting the municipality to ramp up its public messaging, Crompton relayed. Those complaints have not translated into penalties, however: municipal hall has not issued any fines for off-leash dogs in 2020, nor did it during the same period last year.
There have been roughly 70 dog bites reported to the municipality since 2015.
Although Whistler has had a leash law in place since the '80s, council adopted a new Animal Responsibility Bylaw in September that added more specific language to the legislation. Under that bylaw, failure to have a leash can net a $75 fine, failure to leash a dog is a $150 fine, and having an animal at large is a $200 fine.
Bylaw officers have a fair bit of leeway when it comes to off-leash dogs, with a municipal spokesperson saying that enforcement and ticketing is focused on dangerous dogs and bites, and that education is "the preferred approach" for off-leash dogs.
Trister is adamant the muni's enforcement isn't enough of a deterrent for what amounts to a matter of public safety.
"If you had a muni person on a bicycle that was just riding up and down the trails handing out warnings saying, 'Hey, this time's a warning but next time is a ... fine,' the problem would be solved immediately, because everyone with a dog would tell everyone else with a dog, 'Uh oh, I got busted today. Gotta have your dog on a leash,'" he said.
Crompton said bylaw officers patrol the Valley Trail and Whistler's parks on a daily basis—but it's unrealistic to think bylaw officers will hit every stretch of the more than 40 kilometres of trail and more than 40 of the resort's parks in a given day.
"Our bylaw teams are out all summer long patrolling parks and trails, the Valley Trail, and trailheads," he noted. "Their focus is in ensuring that people are sharing public spaces well, and certainly leashing dogs is one of the primary ways people can do that. Every day, we have bylaw staff out."
While acknowledging the challenges around enforcement, Crompton is confident bylaw, and the wider municipality, is doing enough to manage the issue.
"Our goal is to use education, bylaw enforcement and to drive people to the right behaviours," he said. "I agree it's a challenge. It's one that we are taking seriously and are putting resources behind. We've increased our communications in the last few months in the community about the need to leash dogs and we'll match that with our bylaw officers out there communicating that and enforcing that."
What to do if you're injured by a dog
Most jurisdictions have legislation in place to deal with dangerous dogs, but whether that leads to accountability is going to depend on a number of factors. At the scene of a dog-related injury, it is crucial to identify whose dog it is in order to follow up with a report. If an owner is uncooperative, then try contacting police, explained Christopher McDougall, managing partner at Preszler Injury Lawyers.
"We have a system of police officers ... who do have the legal authority and the means to coerce information out of people, so use them," he said. "Don't try and do it yourself."
Secondly, it's important to catalogue any visible injuries as soon as possible, including photographing them, in addition to having them medically recorded and treated by a healthcare professional, said McDougall.
There are a number of ways to prove liability in the event of a dog attack. Based on old common law, the "one-bite" rule applies in B.C., which means that, with a few exceptions, an owner can be held liable if they have knowledge that their dog has previously bitten another person. A successful claim is also possible if the animal has previously shown a trait that it could harm others (for example, if the dog regularly growls without being provoked).
McDougall said getting an admission at the scene from the owner of their dog's previous aggressive behaviour would be "very powerful" evidence in a civil case.
"Nothing's a slam dunk in law, but it would put you on track for the best chance of success in your case," he added.
Negligence is another way to prove liability. If an owner has put their dog in a situation where it might foreseeably cause harm to others, such as letting their dog loose in a leash-mandated area, that could be considered negligent.
There are other less common ways to prove liability, including public nuisance and occupier's liability, which involves being in someone's home where "they haven't put the dog in a situation ... that is out of the way and makes them safe," McDougall said.
While there are several ways to prove liability, actually receiving an award in a civil dog injury case is rare, McDougall noted, and are typically for less money than other more common injury cases. "You see a lot of cases where people are getting $6,000, $10,000, $15,000, maybe even $20,000 for a real mauling ... and then you see someone in a car accident who has an intermittent sore back and they get, like, $50,000. It's like, what's going on here?" he added. "It's because of frequency of cases.
"They're totally out of whack with the awards that come by from other types of personal injury. That's just a feature of dog bites, and you might actually see that a lot of lawyers don't take dog-bite cases because valuing them is so difficult."
McDougall highlighted another little-known feature of dog-injury cases: they would typically be covered by homeowner or tenant insurance.
"[A dog owner] might not even know if they have insurance that would cover this, but that's a question when we get called that we always have to think about," McDougall said. "There are cases where we take them and at the end of the day, the person who has the dog that did the biting doesn't have insurance and we have to make this decision whether it's even economically viable to even try [to pursue damages]."
For more information on local animal control regulations, visit whistler.ca/municipal-gov/bylaws-and-regulations/animal-control.
