The City of Richmond is well on its way to banning the tethering of unattended dogs.
City council on Monday night instructed its staff to include an unattended, anti-tethering clause in the animal control bylaw and draft an amendment accordingly.
The move comes after animal rights campaigners urged councillors to take action against the "cruel" act of tying and chaining up dogs and leaving them for hours on end.
The campaigners showed councillors graphic videos of dogs being subjected to cruelty.
"It's okay for the dogs to be tied up when they're with people at picnics or out in the garden, for example," Janet Olson, of Ban Resident Dogs, said earlier this month.
"It's when they're left unattended that it can become cruel and dangerous for the dogs and for people."
Olson, a White Rock resident, said the majority of incidents of people, especially children, being bitten by dogs happens when a dog is tied up.
"Children see a dog and naturally want to pet it. But that's when there's the most danger as a chained-up dog will sometimes aggressively defend itself," explained Olson.
"We've bred dogs for thousands of years to be our companions, but then we torture them by keeping them isolated."
City staff are expected to come back with a new draft of the animal control bylaw later this year. Surrey is already considering a similar ban.
