Fatal & disfiguring dog attacks in Canada, 2004-present

Compiled by the editors of ANIMALS 24-7 from media accounts since 2004, this table is a subset of data from our annually updated table Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada, 1982-present. Detailed notes on compilation and definitions are accessible at that link. ____________________________________________________________

Dog breed                   Dogs Child Adult Dead Maimed  Notes
Akita                         6     2    1           3
Australian cattle dog         1          1           1
Boxer                         7     1    7     1     7    Boxer assisted in murder
Bull mastiff/Presa Canario    2     1    2           3
Cane Corso                    3     1    1           1
Catahoula                     2          2           2
Chow/German shepherd          1     1                1
Collie                        1     1          1          Attacked with 3 Rott.
Dogo Argentino                1     1                1
Dogo/Rottweiler mix           1          1           1
Fila Brasilero/Sharpei        1          1     1     1
German shepherd              15     7    3          10
Golden retriever              1     1                1
Great Pyrenees                1          1           1
Husky or husky mix           39    17    1    11     7
Jindo                         1          1           1
Karelian bear dogs            2          1           1
Labrador retriever            3     1    1           2
Malamute                      4     2          2
Malinois                      1          1           1
Mastiff                       4          6           4
Pit bull                    233    59  158    11   191    *
Pit/Akita                     2     1                1
Pit/Border collie             2     1                1
Pit/boxer mix                 1     1                1
Pit/Lab                       1          1           1
Pit/Rottweiler                2     1    1           2
Rottweiler                   10     3    5     1     7    Same dead as collie case
Rott/German shepherd          1     1          1
St. Bernard                   3     2                2    
Shi Tsu                       2     1    1           2    *
Tibetan mastiff               2          1           1    
Unknown                     103    37   50    10    66    *
Wolf hybrid                   3          1           1
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
                            460   143  247    39   323

* Four pit bulls owned by Hal Douglas Harris mauled as many as eight people in Alberta and B.C. in 2007-2008, but particulars of victims are unavailable.

* A 41-year-old Kitchener, Ontario man died from a heart attack on July 28, 2017 while under attack from his own pit bull. A similar death occurred in Hamilton, Ontario on September 20, 2017.

* Infected bite cost adult female victim an arm & both legs

* Ross River resident Shane Glada was found on Oct. 17, 2015 after he had been missing for several days. A coroner’s inquest found that he had been attacked by at least three unidentified dogs.

Commonly claimed, before the Kathleen Green death in 2018, is that a pit bull had never killed anyone in Canada.

Although it is true that no dog identified as a pit bull had killed anyone in Canada since 2006, during which time pit bulls were been banned in Ontario and most of the population centers in Manitoba, there were these fatal attacks earlier:

Joseph Peters, 22, killed by two American Staffordshire terriers on August 15, 1995. American Staffordshires are unequivocally pit bulls.

Sharon Reynolds, 7, killed by a pit bull on June 12, 1997. Her mother was wrongly charged in the case, and spent three and a half years in jail before she was cleared by the combination of forensic evidence and the discovery that the author of the original pathology report had misrepresented evidence in numerous cases. More info about this case is below.

Courtney Trempe, 8, killed by a bull mastiff on April 29, 1998. A bull mastiff, also known as a Presa Canario, is a mix of pit bull with mastiff. (Bull mastiff fanciers commonly deny this.)

John Martin, 77, killed by a Lab/pit mix on May 30, 2006.

Pit bull victim Sharon Reynolds (left) and her mother Louise Reynolds, who was wrongly convicted of her death.

The Sharon Reynolds case

Pit bulls were still exceedingly rare in Canada, and their characteristic behavior practically unknown, when Sharon Reynolds, 7, of Kingston, Ontario, was killed by a pit bull on June 12, 1997.

Her mother was wrongly charged in the case, and spent three and a half years in jail before she was cleared by the combination of forensic evidence and the discovery that the author of the original pathology report had misrepresented evidence in numerous cases.

Details are below:

Kenneth Phillips, author of Dogbite Law.

http://dogbitelaw.com/blog/child-was-killed-by-pit-bull-not-by-knife.html

Child Was Killed by Pit Bull, Not By Knife

In 1997, Louise Reynolds, a 28 year old single mother living in Kingston, Ontario, was charged with 2nd degree murder for having killed her seven-year old daughter Sharon.

Prosecutors said that she stabbed the child more than 80 times with a pair of scissors, because she was angry at her for having head lice. There was dog excrement found near the girl’s body, and it was noted the dog appeared to be covered in ketchup.

Much of the case rested on a 10-page autopsy report by Dr. Charles Randal Smith, the head pediatric forensic pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, from 1982 to 2003.

In January 2001 prosecutors abruptly dropped the charges, after numerous experts, including prosecution witnesses, disagreed with Smith and agreed that a pit bull had mauled the girl.
By then, Reynolds had spent three and a half years in jail awaiting trial. While she was in prison, her other daughter was adopted.

To read more about the disgraced Dr Smith, click here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Randal_Smith

(Beth Clifton collage)

Who killed Sharon Reynolds: mother or pit bull?

Last Updated: Friday, November 10, 2000 | 11:53 PM ET CBC News

Crown prosecutors want to have a child’s body exhumed to determine whether she was stabbed to death by her mother or killed by a pit bull terrier.

According to The Globe & Mail, Louise Reynolds, the mother accused of stabbing her seven-year-old daughter, is expected to be released on bail after two years in custody.

Sharon Reynolds’ body was found in the basement of her Kingston home in June, 1997. Police, backed by a pathology report, concluded the girl had been stabbed 82 times.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Soon after, the mother was charged with second-degree murder. Ms. Reynolds had no criminal record. No weapon was found.

Ms. Reynolds has consistently denied the accusation. Her lawyers say Sharon was killed by a pit bull terrier. A pit bull terrier named “Hat Trick” was owned by an acquaintance of Ms. Reynolds.

It was determined at the preliminary inquest that the dog was at the scene of the child’s death. A witness told police on the night of the killing that there were red stains on the dog’s chest. The dog was put down weeks after Sharon’s death.

Two pathologists have provided different opinions of the cause of the child’s death. Dr. Charles Smith, director of pathology at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, performed the autopsy. He said the child died from 82 stab wounds.

Beth & Merritt Clifton

Another pathologist, Dr. Rex Ferris of Vancouver, believes Sharon was killed by a dog. Ferris was retained by Ms. Reynolds’ defense lawyers. He is the pathologist who was involved in the famous “dingo baby” case in Australia in the 1980s.

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Comments

Jamaka Petzak says
November 10, 2023 at 4:37 pm
The stuff of the worst nightmares. One wishes you COULD make this stuff up.
Sharing with gratitude.
Natalie says
November 12, 2023 at 12:53 am
I don’t know if you saw the story of Elizabeth Cluckie from Burlington, ON, Canada, who was killed by an alleged Cane Corso. Her husband and a neighbor were badly hurt in the incident. They had adopted the dog from a rescue a few months before the attack. Sadly, I don’t think the police investigated the rescue and whether they had withheld information about the dog’s history. I also don’t know why the rescue let an elderly couple adopt a Cane Corso. I don’t think I would be a candidate for it now and even less in 40 years. Some rescues just want to stick the dogs somewhere and don’t care about anything else. 🙁
https://globalnews.ca/video/9790388/neighbours-of-a-burlington-woman-killed-in-a-dog-attack-are-saddened-by-the-news
- Merritt Clifton says
  November 12, 2023 at 1:04 am
  ANIMALS 24-7 logged and briefly reported about Elizabeth Cluckie’s death here: If pit bull victims were billionaires in a leaky sub, public might give a damn.
  Unfortunately, very little information about that attack was available at the time, including that the pit bull or Cane Corso who killed her came from a rescue shortly before Cluckie was killed and the others were badly injured. We would appreciate receiving further details about that, including the name of the rescue, if you have it.
  Also of note is that despite elaborate pretenses by fanciers to the contrary, a Cane Corso is ancestrally just another of many pit bull variants. See Cane Corso: A pit bull by any other name.