From time to time, on our daily jaunts through our neighbourhood wooded ravine we come across a neighbour who lives at the bottom of our street, and his pitbull, a muscularly large, white-with-brown traces dog that his step-daughter had given him as a gift. This is a friendly and quietly respectful animal that is accustomed to instantly obeying her human's voice. She is polite and unobtrusive in her approach, a really beautiful animal.

Another person whom we meet often is a woman who has two very small tan-coated pugs, surprisingly energetic little beasts, one of whom follows me faithfully when we come across them, having long ago ascertained that I am the fount of the riches of peanuts which she adores and comes across on occasion, in various parts of the trail - most of which she can only smell, not reach, although she is heroic in her efforts to retrieve them from their slightly out-of-reach perches.

This woman told us that she had been disappointed when she'd attended the event at ScotiaBank Place in early November to see Cesar Millan perform his dog-whisperer miracles communicating with dogs. He had with him not one of his own beloved companions, a pit bull that accompanies him often and with which he is accustomed to working, but a Canada Border Services dog on loan, not a pit bull. He was denied entry to Ontario with a pit bull because this province has a law that will not permit their presence, as a protective measure for the public against aggressive dogs.

Clearly, a law outlawing irresponsible pet ownership and the encouragement of violent aggression by dog owners of their malleable pets is more in order, but it would be a law that could hardly be enforced. She had been disappointed because the dog-on-loan had obviously been trained as a service dog using a methodology quite unlike Millan's own celebrated type of communication. Using a dog he hadn't himself had previous contact with just didn't seem to work.

Of course he might have done due diligence before embarking on his much-advertised visit to Ottawa. He, or his handlers, should have been aware that they would be unable lawfully to bring a pit bull - even Cesar Millan's well-trained and critical-to-his-display of mastery in human-canine communication - into the province.