Dog attack prompts Home Depot to consider pet ban change, happy

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Dog attack prompts Home Depot to consider pet ban



Home Depot is considering banning pet dogs following an attack that saw a store greeter rushed to hospital last week for emergency surgery on her nose.

Dogs are currently allowed in Home Depot stores as long as they are under their owner’s control, but a company spokeswoman said Monday that under a possible policy change, only service animals would be allowed.

“You have to weigh keeping those customers happy with the overall safety (of employees and shoppers),” said Tiziana Baccega. “All it takes is one instance of this to make you evaluate what the priorities are.”

Anne Riel, 39, who has worked as a greeter at the Home Depot Cyrville Road store for a year, says a woman came into the store last Friday with the medium-sized shih tzu in her shopping cart.

Riel greeted the woman and bent down to pat the dog.

With no warning, Riel said, the dog jumped out of the cart and bit the tip of her nose.

Doctors stitched her skin together over the tip of her nose and reattached her left nostril.

The incident prompted a debate Monday between dog owners who wouldn’t leave home without their animals and those who feel a dog’s place is in the home or car — especially when its owner is out shopping.

The story made the rounds in local media Monday and got some Citizen readers irate.

“Since when is it store policy to allow you to bring your dog into any store other than Petsmart?,” asked one commentator on the Citizen’s Facebook page.

Others, meanwhile, said where the incident happened is beside the point.

“Owners need to protect and know their dogs,” said another reader, “and strangers have to keep their faces away.”

To be or not to be dog friendly is a challenging new frontier for many businesses.

“There’s no question business has become friendlier toward animals, but there are risks to employees, to customers and also to the business itself,” said Dan Kelly, the senior vice-president for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

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Businesses that benefit from walk-in traffic could lose customers if they bar dogs, while those that allow dogs could alienate shoppers if the presence of a dog in the store makes a person hot under the collar.

A city bylaw restricts dogs from entering restaurants or shops where food is sold, but otherwise business owners are free to set their own guidelines.

Kelly rhymed off hotels that now welcome furry friends and coffee shops that put a water dish on the sidewalk outside the shop as examples of how businesses large and small are now catering to customers with pets.

Bernhard Pukay, a veterinarian at the Alta Vista Animal Hospital who writes a weekly pet column for the Citizen, called Riel’s situation tragic, but said it happens all too frequently.

“People assume all pets are going to be nice,” he said.

His advice is simple: Let the dog approach you, don’t make direct eye contact, bend down slightly and then put a hand out for the dog to sniff.

Perhaps taking a cue from starlets like Selena Gomez or Paris Hilton — whose small dogs often join them on the red carpet — some people seem to take their dogs with them everywhere.

Pukay said pets are now seen by many as a member of the family, so naturally, they go wherever the owner goes, just like children.

“We don’t leave our kids locked up in the car, we take them with us,” he said.

But that privilege comes with a price.

Dog owners must act responsibly to ensure their pets are socialized properly, added Pukay.

“If you get more and more of these stories where dogs bite people in public places or they soil the area and the owner doesn’t clean it up, the more likely you’re going to end up with people calling for legislation to not allow that anymore and we don’t want that,” he said.

The public must also act responsibly, he said, and should always ask a dog owner for permission before approaching the animal.

“You don’t go up to a child and squeeze its cheeks or rub it on its head, do you? So don’t do it to a dog,” he said.

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Home Depot is considering banning pet dogs following an attack by a shih tzu that saw a store greeter rushed to hospital last week for emergency surgery on her nose