In a horrible kind of way, it is a good thing for us that
other countries introduced their Breed Specific Legislations years ago – or it
would be, if only this country had the good sense to take advantage of their
experiences.
Take the whole issue of where the attack takes place. The Dangerous Dogs Act that this government
is planning to put in place says that “dangerous dogs” can not leave their owner’s
yards, except in two rare instances. By
saying this, the Act is clearly trying to prevent dogs from attacking people in
public spaces and highways. If dangerous
dogs bite anyone while in the public domain the dog will be seized, and/or
possibly killed and the owner fined severely. Fair enough. England has the same law.
But the British Bobbies are now up in arms about dog
attacks. Apparently 5 officers were
attacked by a pit bull type dog in East London
recently. The policemen were well enough
after the attack to hold the dog down while a police marksman shot it dead, but
injured enough that they had to be hospitalized afterwards.
First of all, this was reportedly an attack by a pit bull –
a type of dog that England
outlawed over 20 years ago. Not only
outlawed, but passed a Dangerous Dogs Act prohibiting anyone from breeding or
importing such a dog into the country.
But still, here we have a case where this proclaimed dangerous dog is
able to take on five of Britain ’s
armed and dangerous public defenders. Unless this dog is over 20 years old, one
would have to assume that it was either bred locally or imported. So much for the enforce-ability of the Act.
Secondly, and this is the crux of the matter that has caused Gareth Pritchard, North Wales
Assistant Chief Constable, to publicly express his disgust about the Act, the attack took place on private property. It seems that the Dangerous Dogs Act did not
take into consideration that policemen might have to enter on private property
in pursuit of their duties, so there is no recourse for the officers who were
injured. The police are demanding that
the Act be amended to allow the same penalties to apply when people are
attacked by a dangerous dog even when on its own (private) property.
You know how they say there are always two sides to every
story? This story has about twenty-two
sides.
I wonder how our citizenry would feel about a law being
passed that said if you have a dangerous dog, you can be fined $50,000.00 and
sent to prison for a year if he bites somebody while trying to protect your
property from invasion?
Let us just put aside for the minute the fact that the
police were doing a good thing by entering a suspected criminal’s yard. The point is – how is the dog to
differentiate between them and a real invader with evil intentions towards his
master? In fact, the police did
have evil intentions against the dog’s master!
How is anybody supposed to train their dog – any dog – to recognize a
police uniform and not attack anybody wearing one? Would you even want to do that and run the
risk of the criminals donning police uniforms to get by your dog? What about postal workers, or visiting nurses
or firemen – is the dog supposed to recognize all of those people too? What is he to do, ask them for ID before
biting them on the leg? Again, the dog
is being punished for something it has no control over.
The police are also calling for more powers to seize dogs
that they consider to be dangerous. I am
assuming they are not referring to pit bulls, because they have already been
labelled dangerous in the Dangerous Dog Act and are therefore seize-able by the police. So one has to assume that there are other
dogs out there that the police consider dangerous and that are not on their
Dangerous Dogs Act. What a wild concept –
that any dog can be dangerous – wherever did they get that crazy idea from??
