Town Moving Forward with Recommendations to Strengthen Animal Services

Aurora, ON – The Town of Aurora will act on recommendations to strengthen the ability of the Town’s Animal Services team to safely and effectively manage complex incidents involving animals in distress or exhibiting challenging behaviours.

The recommendations from Canine Foundations – a leading Canadian organization specializing in canine behaviour, assessment and training – are part of a third-party review that the Town commissioned following an incident on May 4, 2026, when a dog died during an Animal Services response in East Gwillimbury. The Town of Aurora also provides animal services to the towns of East Gwillimbury and Georgina.

The review identified areas where the Town can strengthen operational practices, training, policy, supervision, documentation, and organizational preparedness to reduce the risk of similar incidents taking place in the future.

The Town is currently preparing the review for public release on September 15 following necessary redactions as required by law, including confidential employee and witness information.

“This incident has been traumatic for the dog owners and has deeply affected many others across the community,” said Doug Nadorozny, the Town of Aurora’s Chief Administrative Officer. “On behalf of the Town, I want to extend my sincere condolences to the dog owners who lost a pet and everyone who was affected by the incident. Our focus now is learning from what happened and continuing to improve. That’s why we’re committed to being transparent about what the review has revealed and taking meaningful action to strengthen our services and reinforce the community’s trust in our Animal Services team.”

The Canine Foundations’ review team – which included former animal cruelty investigators and control officers, as well as animal behaviour specialists and a veterinarian specializing in animal behaviour and welfare – looked at various aspects of the incident. This included a behaviour analysis of the dog during the incident and a detailed analysis of the Town’s response.

Among the recommendations the Town plans to act on:

• Developing and implementing a Critical Incident Response Protocol for significant animal services incidents
• Improving pre-handling animal assessment, documentation and transport practices
• Strengthening operational communication, team coordination and collaborative decision-making
• Improving behavioural assessments during dynamic incidents
• Implementing a structured animal apprehension decision-making framework
•  Developing structured operational training and ongoing competency maintenance in animal restraint techniques
• Expanding operational guidance for better recognizing and responding to signs of animal distress or deterioration

While the Town does not agree with every assessment or conclusion contained in the review, the Town accepts the need for improvement identified through the process and is developing an action plan to respond to the review's recommendations.

The full review (subject to necessary legal redactions), including the complete list of recommendations, will be released on September 15 on the Town’s website.

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Media contact:
Corporate Communications | 365-500-3083 | communications@aurora.ca