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By JEREMY APPEL on April 11, 2020.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com

Since the beginning of April, bylaw has received six complaints of aggressive canines, with five confirmed bites to people and other animals.

Three of the complaints were the result of incidents occurring in residences, while the other half occurred in parks, both in on-leash and off-leash areas, according to the Medicine Hat Police Service municipal bylaw enforcement section.

All the canine victims were on leash at the time of the attack, while the people had either intervened or were simply riding a bike.

In all cases, the issue was that the owner wasn’t in control of their pet.

Municipal bylaw enforcement supervisor Heather Trail tells the News the nature of these complaints is different from what bylaw typically handles.

Trail says bylaw typically gets anywhere from two or three up to 10 per month.

“Each circumstance can be as simple as a dog just barking and causing someone to fear coded as aggressive, but that wasn’t the case in the calls we’ve had in just the first week of April,” she explained. “These calls have specifically been an actual altercation with bites and even injuries involved.”

This is directly related to behavioural changes resulting from the COVID crisis, Trail suspects.

“What we’re seeing is a huge increase in activity in our parks, in our off-leash areas, in the heritage trail system and even in our neighbourhoods. People are out and about,” she said. “I think there are a lot of dogs who are potentially being walked way more often than they have in the past, so maybe we have some new dogs just learning how to socialize.”

Trail says there’s a “ripple effect” at play.

“Changing our routines in our lives affects our pets a great deal and I think this is a result of that,” she said.