On September 25 in Montreal, Canada, city legislators voted 37-23 in favor of breed-specific regulation, outlawing any dog that resembles a pit bull.

This means that any dog that resembles a pit bull (American pit bull terriers, American Staffordshire terriers and Staffordshire bull terriers) that is in the shelter in Montreal is not allowed to be adopted, and therefore has to be euthanized. For those who already own pit bulls, a set of rules was put in place that allows owners to keep them -- that is, IF they follow the rules.

Now anyone who owns a dog that is considered a pit bull has until March to get a background check and pay a $150 fee for a special permit. The dog then has to be sterilized, vaccinated and microchipped. If that wasn't enough, the dog also has to be muzzled and kept on a four foot leash at all times while in public.

This new law resulted due to a series of dog attacks in the city. One of the more well known cases was when a woman was attacked and killed by a neighbor's dog that resembled a pit bull in June.

Mayor of Montreal, Denis Coderre, defended this new law, saying, "I have a responsibility as the mayor of Montreal to protect the citizens."

So far, all this ban is doing is sparking controversy not only in Montreal, but around the world. The American Bar Association wrote a letter to Mayor Coderre questioning the legality of the ban. Celebrities like Sophia Bush, Rachel Ray and Nikki Reed have spoken out against the ban. The SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) in Montreal even said that they're going to cancel its contract with the city because of the ban.

I understand wanting to keep people safe, but giving death sentences to dogs who have done nothing to deserve it is unjustified. Forcing good dogs in shelters to be euthanized just because one dog from their breed committed a crime cannot be considered fair. Forcing people who own pit bulls to pay a fee and forcing good pit bulls to wear muzzles in public cannot be considered just. Punishing the bad dog is one thing, but punishing dogs who have done nothing to deserve it is another.

In one sense, this is part of the problem with our world. We group people together in order to discriminate, and then justify our negative thoughts and actions toward them by reasoning that once there was a bad person that was similar to that group of people that acted negatively. We need calling groups of people "bad" just because their race, religion, etc. matched that of a criminal.

While I know that dogs don't fall under the "people" category, it's the same concept. Of the 2,000 dogs that the Montreal SPCA takes in every year, one third of them are pit bulls. This means that Montreal is going to euthanize 700 dogs who have done nothing to deserve this sentence, simply because there was one dog from their breed that did something bad.

Euthanizing innocent dogs isn't what is going to keep the city safe. There will always be some bad dogs in the world just like there will always be some bad people in the world. The only thing this law is doing is sparking anger in the citizens of Montreal and bringing people together from all over the world to fight this wrongful ruling. But hopefully, if enough people band together to fight this, we can get the law repealed.

So what exactly can we do to help? We can keep fighting the Montreal government by signing this petition, writing to them here or even helping the Montreal SPCA find homes for the pit bulls sentenced to wrongful deaths.

Stand with thousands of others across the world to help these dogs get the justice they deserve.