After spending $45,000 in legal and staff expenses on the case of Trevor the dog, the City of Whitehorse has had enough.

"The city wants to step away from this,” lawyer Lori Lavoie said today, in what was supposed to be the dog's last hearing in Yukon Supreme Court chambers. "... It has gone on way too long, and the city wants it to end.”

And after adjourning the hearing for an hour to discuss a solution, the city and the Humane Society Yukon came back farther apart than when they started.

In its final application to the court, the city asked that Trevor be returned to the pound, where he would be destroyed.

"The only thing that brings finality to this matter is relinquishing ownership of Trevor to the city,” Lavoie said.

The city made the decision in the face of "mounting frustration (and) mounting impatience,” with the whole affair, Lavoie added.

The humane society – the dog's current owner – had been given until today to come up with a foster home

for the dog, but came to court empty handed this morning.

"The (humane society's) proposal is that essentially the status quo continue,” society lawyer Carrie Burbidge said at the beginning of the day, indicating the shelter wants to keep the dog on his current training regime until it can find him a foster home.

But up until now, the "status quo” has also included regular supreme court hearings to check in on the process of finding a foster home for the animal and renewing the stay of execution.

At the last hearing, both the city and Justice Ron Veale made it clear they are not willing to continue dealing with the matter in court.

Trevor's long and well-documented history in the courts began 15 months ago when Whitehorse resident Kevin Sinclair filed a supreme court application for a stay of execution after the city announced it was going to put the dog down because he had reportedly bit and lunged at a number of people.

The humane society soon took over from Sinclair, won custody of the animal and has been caring for him ever since.

Although the dog was never officially deemed a dangerous dog under the city's Animal Control Bylaw, the animal behaviour specialist who was hired to assess Trevor wrote in her report that he is dangerous and will always pose a risk to the general public.

"Trevor is a dangerous dog, there is no doubt about that,” the judge said in court today. The animal specialist also reiterated her original assessment today, saying Trevor "will never be rehabilitated for life into a good citizen.”

After the fruitless one-hour break, the humane society asked the judge to declare Trevor a dangerous dog under the bylaw, but argued he should be allowed to live in the shelter until he is ready to be adopted to a permanent home.

But as Lavoie pointed out, if Trevor does act aggressively again – which would give the city the right to put him down based on the Animal Control Bylaw – the humane society would want to come back to court to protect him from the consequences.

"The city can't allow that to happen,” she said, noting the cost of more court hearings.

Burbidge did not dispute the fact that the humane society would keep going to court on Trevor's behalf.

The whole matter is complicated by the fact that the judge who heard the first part of the case, Justice Randall Wong, wrote a long and onerous care plan based on the specialist's report.

No one who has stepped forward to foster the dog has been able to meet all the criteria, the last stumbling block usually being approval from neighbours.

Faced with the city's argument the dog should be returned to the pound and euthanized, and the humane society's plea to let him stay on at the shelter until the behaviour specialist says he is safe to adopt to a permanent home, Veale reserved his decision.

For the time being, Trevor remains at the shelter.