Dog Control Laws And Pit Bulls

[KathyM]

Muzzling all dogs in public would not have prevented the attack on Ellie.

What the press have failed to pick up on is that if this dog was a banned breed, how come it wasn't already being treated as such? The council had received two complaints - one for a dog attack, one for noise. Not once did they pick up on it being a "pit bull" and enforce the law in any way. The dog became a "pit bull" when this terrible tragedy couldn't be rectified with the all breed legislation for keeping dogs under control in public places - before then it would've probably been labelled a mongrel, a staffie cross, a boxer cross, any bullbreed cross. It's a knee jerk reaction and bad law enforcement at it's worst.

 

[LouiseRat]

The following article discusses the current laws on dog control;

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6222689.stm

There have been numerous attacks recently on people of all ages, from toddlers to pensioners, some of which have been fatel and others which have left life time scars, not just physically but also mentally on their victims.
5 year old girl dies from attack from pit bull terrior like breed;

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6225205.stm

Man badly injured by boxer dog;

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/glouces...ire/6225141.stm

Boy attacked by Jack Russel;

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/6201451.stm

Girl and pet dog killed by Japanese Akita's;

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/6164331.stm

Etc...Type "dog attack" into the bbc news search engine and it will bring up hundreds of reports.


I don't doubt that certain types of dogs are more likely to attack people than others, however, i don't think there are any breeds of dogs that can't be trained not to. I think that although the breed of the dog will play a lot in its personality, the main factor of how a dog turns out simply comes down to its owner and how the owner trains, raises and keeps the dog.

I think part of the problem is that there are certain "macho" dogs- bull dogs, staffies, pit bull terriors, rhodesian ridgebacks etc all seem to play a part of the macho dog image. There are so many idiots who specifically go for certain breeds so the dog makes the owner look hard or tough. A certain percentage of dogs bought for these purposes are even sometimes specifically trained to be unsociable or bad tempered. But when it comes down to it, its the owner who should take the responsability for the dog, whatever happens.

I also think a part of the dog violence problem comes down to other factors...Many of the breeds of dogs we know or love today were bred to be working dogs in one way or another (like hunting dogs, sheep dogs, cattle dogs, guard dogs, pest control dogs etc)- these types of dogs are bred to have bags of energy, to run around in feilds working for 10 hours or more a day with no problem. This is the way many breeds have been bred for hundreds, even thousands, of years.
Now days, people are leading less and less active lifestyles and live in more and more populated area's. A sheep dog is not going to thrive in an environment where it spends pretty much its entire day sitting around in a flat or being cuddled, with only a hafl hour walk a day. Sooner or later the dog will become fat and unhealthy, or bored and rebelious against its lifestyle. A lot of dogs rebel and will start to have behavioral problems without enough excercise or mental stimulation in their day to day lives and environments.
These problems can often lead to agression in the dog, there are often many reasons for this.

I also think some people end up with delinquent (sp?) dogs because they are far, far too soft on them. A dog is a dog- it is not a child. That doesn't mean you shouldn't treat the animal with respect, but you should treat it as the animal it is. Dogs in general are very intelligent and sociable animals, if you allow yourself to become a push-over when your dog starts behvaing badly, then the situation will only get worse. A lot of people with serious problem dogs only do so because they either did not know how to enforce their authority and rules on the dog when it was young or new, or because they did not carry out the rules properly or enough.
I've seen people with dogs whose dogs try to shag people's legs all the time and their owners hardly do a thing about it. Such behavior is disgusting and wrong and the dog should be made to understand this as soon as the issue starts.
So yeah...Basically, my point is that;
a. There are breeds which are more challenging than others to keep depending on your lifestyle. Choose your dog carefully and don't just choose it based on its looks/appearance.
b. You are responsable for everything your dog does from the day you own it- if it craps on the pavement in the street, its your responsability to clean it up, if it bites you its your responsability to train it not to, and if you dog injures someone else...Then that is every bit your responsability as everything else.
c. Don't be cruel to dogs, but remember to be tough- stand your ground when enforcing the rules. If you are trying to teach your dog not to do something, don't let it get away with it, as that will either confuse the dog or make it believe it can dominate you etc.
d. If you cannot handle looking after your dog, or simply don't have enough time to exercise it every day and generally look after it, then either find the time to look after it, or take it to a training school, or rehome it. Don't let the problems get worse, especially if you know you will not be capable of handling these situations well or effectively.

Personally i think people need to be a lot more harsh on dog crime- owners are not half as severely punished as they should be i think. If a dog attacks someone it gets killed/put down, but what happens to the owner? The owner has practically signed the dogs death warrent by not training and handling it properly. Its almost a form of animal cruelty, as the dog has to pay for the owners irresponsability and ignorance/arrogance.
Dogs that are untrained or have issues and could potentially pose a danger to anyone should have a muzzle put on them anytime at all times they are out and about so they cannot bite people.

What are your current opinions on the current dog control laws? Do you feel that certain things need to be changed and if so, what?

chavvers need to be banned from keeping staffies and pitbulls , its a status symbol on council estates .

 

[fenwoman]

Difficult. Some dogs are nasty and snappy and dangerous. So are some people. It all gets in the news when someone gets hurt - man stabbed, child bitten. It's more important when a BIG dog attacks someone because they do so much more damage. You might be able to train a killer chihuahua but really, unles you're a leprechaun it's not going to be that bigger threat to the average Joe on the street. 100lbs of Rottweiller is.

I don't think it's realistic to think ALL dogs can be trained to be good, not all people can be. It becomes unfortunate when a crappy dog is given to a twat human and you suddenly have a very dangerous combination.

My dog is not a good "people animal". She was an abused puppy, spent her childhood from 2 months to 9 months in kennels and we took her from there. Incidentally, they put her in there because she "kept chewing things" - no sht. She was 2 months old, what do you expect? idiots.

Anyway, we have a beautiful family dog with a lovely nature and a super personality who turns into a psychopath when she sees blonde women.
I don't know what her history there is, but it aint good. Only she knows what went on. Her and the original blonde woman anyway. We could I suppose train it out of her, but I have yet to find a blonde woman that wants to be the hate target of a pssed off 75lb lab cross. We just avoid situations that upset her.

Anyway, they need to put constraints on breeds and access to them because they don't seem to be able to put any controls on the idiots that want them for bad purposes. I think an ASBO should preclude you from ever owning a dog, like a felony means you can't own a gun. They are obviously not good people, and therefore how can they raise a responsible dog? Mind you, I don't think scum should be alllowed to have kids either but that's another conversation.

I don't think you are that far from me and to this end, I would be willing to don a blonde wig and help you and your dog. I am serious calm around all dogs and seem to let of a smell which dogs like, even aggressive ones. If you think this might be feasible, please let me know.

 

[fenwoman]

and people wonder why I have cynophobia

I recall a trip to Helsinki and was delighted to see that every dog in public was muzzled,
I'm sure it is a law there, should the rest of the world not take note.

Sorry but this in nonsense.My dogs are all well socialised and friendly. My last collie was not. I take care to walk my dogs on a lead when I'm out, the old collie was only let off the lead either on my land or down the riverbank where not a soul goes. All are trained to come back the minute I call them. Muzzling all dogs in public would mean that if someone attacked me while I am walking them on the isolated rural riverbank, they could not defend me. It would also mean that 99% pf pet dogs which are normal friendly well socialilsed pets, could never play fetch, cannot pant properly when exersized, cannot have a drink if they are out in hot weather. According to the law, even my car is considered a public place.
I get tired of the hysteria fanned by people who are afraid of dogs or dislike dogs. I watched last night as the bloke who brought the original bill into law, said much the same as you but speciefies breeds like the 'Alsatian' which shows his ignorance as they are called German shepherd. I have come across lots of this breed with my involvement in rescue and to be honest not one has worried me .
The problem is not certain breeds, but the needs of the breed compared with the level of good ownership. Since most dog owners I meet are incapable or providing the correct training and socialisation I must admit I am wary of people with certain breeds.
I would cross the street if someone had one of the bull breeds, or the fashionable american bulldog and the like if it was obvious that the dog had not been trained, was pulling like mad on the lead, dressed in armour (that god awful thick leather harness with huge brass studs).
I've known many staffies and all have been delightful. I know 2 locally who are registered pat dogs and when my son gets his own house, I shall encourage him to get a staffy. I myself would love a rottweiler. If I ever got one, you can be sure that the dog would be very well socialised indeed and taken with me everywhere I went as a pup and encourage people to make a fuss of it.
You simply cannot regard every single dog as dangerous.
Some breeds require more training and socialisation than others and to this end I would like to see some kind of compulsory training classes with certain breeds perhaps requiring 3rd party insurance. Anything which would make protential owners face their responsibilities.
I really don't know what the answer is, but anyone who chooses one of the large so called macho breeds should be assessed for their suitabillity of ownership.
Condemning all dogs as potential killers is not the answer but I don't know what is.

 

[KathyM]

I too disagree with the muzzling of certain breeds. Only a couple of months ago, Dharma was attacked in the park by a dog that wouldn't fall under the breed types. It worries me that my socialised dog friendly dog would also be at risk from others not deemed to be dangerous, but clearly far more so than her.

 

[morgan]

While we're talking about dog attacks, do any of you who know a lot about dogs have any tips for fending off a dog attack? I know this wouldn't help a child but I just wondered for adults? I avoid any dogs I don't like the look of (they know when you're scared) but suppose you can't get away? I hope my question isn't insensitive given that an innocent child has died.

 

[black angel]

The news said it was a pit bull and it belonged to her nephew I think it was. Apparently she and Ellie were the only people in the house at the time.
Dont know what the child was doing at 4 am in the living room, who knows maybe she saw the dog sleeping and tried to pet it.

Near Newcastle a staffie attacked two children on the street.

I dont know personally what can be done to safeguard children from dogs that bite. The dogs in question are bred to be fighters no matter what anyone says. My sister had a lovely staffie but she re homed her when she had her son as she couldnt trust the breed.
I think most of the dogs that attack are owned by young men who want the status symbol of owning whats termed a dangerous dog. I doubt the dogs in question are socialised properly which is where the problems start.
I know there are lovely pit bull types out there kept by sensible people who train them properly, but sadly the minority are making it harder for people to trust the breed.

I wonder if anyone thinks it wont be long before we see legislation against any pit bull type?

 

[black angel]

Morgan, i think if you are faced with a dog that is growling at you and you feel trapped i think what you do is move slowly as any fast movements would excite the dog and certainly trying to run would incite an attack.
My own advice would be to stand your ground and not look the dog in the eye. Fold your arms and stand slowly turn your back to it. The dog should get bored and move on but its not easy to stay still when faced with a growling angry dog, no matter what its size.
If the dog jumps on you then maybe a sharp shout might distract the animal enough to let you go.
Im not sure really and maybe someone who actually trains dogs can best advise.

 

[LisaLQ]

It's that kind of ignorance that gives dogs a bad name. Rehomed her dog just in case just because she "couldn't trust the breed"? Staffies are known to be the best family dogs you can get. Your sister needs an oops upside the head for making a dog homeless that had done nothing wrong, shame on her. If she was worried about the breed, she shouldn't have got him in the first place. Dogs aren't disposable you know. There's a chance he could have been put to sleep just because he was given a bad name by your sister.

Did you know more dog attacks are done by labs than bull breeds?

Edited to add - dogs that are bred to fight are bred to fight other dogs. They are trained not to bite people. I'm not agreeing with fighting dogs by a long shot - but the paranoia that surfaces when a dog attacks is just stupid. The only reason these or any dogs bite is because of the way they are raised. You just dont hear about labrador attacks, or spaniels biting kids because they dont make good news stories.

 

[morgan]

Thanks. You always wonder when you hear about these attacks about what anyone could do to help themselves (or anyone else).

 

[OohFeeshy]

Just for the record, the owner of the dog that killed the girl was a convicted drug dealer, and according to his neighbours, the dog was specificaly trained to be an aggressive 'muscle' dog. While the report I was reading this morning (in The Sun, make of that what you will) definately put a lot of emphasis on how irresponsible, etc. etc. the owner was, it certainly didn't help by pulling out the traditionaly captioned 'Vicious- dog like the one that attacked Ellie' and comments from others incinuating while it was partly the owners fault, the dog was an 'evil breed'. While articles about even minor attacks by this type of dog get full page spreads, I find it interesting how equally vicious attacks by less 'violent' breeds like chiuaus get tiny mentions, and often are written to appear humerous.

 

[black angel]

Lisa, the dog belonged to her boyfriend who brought her to live with them. I have to ask though, what price on a childs head? If the dog had attacked the baby who would have been to blame? Staffies have the reputation brought about by the media so you cant blame her for being worried about it.
Any dog bred to fight must be treated with respect and to call her ignorant is really a bit much.
The dog went to a friend of her boyfriends who wanted her and not dumped on any pet shelter to deal with.
Sometimes i wonder if dogs are more important than children in this country.
If my own dog ever bit anyone then she would be at the vets without a second thought.
yes i did know that labs arent as cuddly and loveable as people make out but neither is any breed, but i wouldnt want a dog bred for the fight in my house with children either.

 

[LisaLQ]

Well if that's her belief, she shouldn't have either got the dog or got pregnant - she had a choice. If she planned on having kids and couldn't bear the thought of a lovely family pet then she shouldn't have got one. If she got the dog first, she should have thought before getting pregnant.

But to be honest, if she had that little confidence in her own training skills she's probably better off with a robopet. The fact is, of all the breeds out there, a staffie is less likely to bite than others. If she thinks she has to rehome a staffie because she had kids, she shouldn't consider any dog - as all dogs are capable of biting, and you're more likely to be bitten by a lab than a staffie.

I dont disagree that kids are most important. But rehoming a dog just because of a news story is just pathetic. Think of all those dogs needing homes, and people like your sister giving breeds a bad name when they haven't even done anything wrong.

It's appalling. Thank god she didn't burden a rescue with it - although I'm sure that if the dog was as lovely as you say, it would have found a much better home in no time. One that loved it enough to see past the media hype.

 

[KathyM]

The news said it was a pit bull and it belonged to her nephew I think it was. Apparently she and Ellie were the only people in the house at the time.
Dont know what the child was doing at 4 am in the living room, who knows maybe she saw the dog sleeping and tried to pet it.

Near Newcastle a staffie attacked two children on the street.

I dont know personally what can be done to safeguard children from dogs that bite. The dogs in question are bred to be fighters no matter what anyone says. My sister had a lovely staffie but she re homed her when she had her son as she couldnt trust the breed.
I think most of the dogs that attack are owned by young men who want the status symbol of owning whats termed a dangerous dog. I doubt the dogs in question are socialised properly which is where the problems start.
I know there are lovely pit bull types out there kept by sensible people who train them properly, but sadly the minority are making it harder for people to trust the breed.

I wonder if anyone thinks it wont be long before we see legislation against any pit bull type?

There IS legislation against pit bull types. Most sensible people would argue that breed bans haven't and won't ever work.

What "dogs in question"? All staffies and "pit bull types"? Well we've already established that the Kennel Club believe the suitability of staffies as pets is so good that they are the only breed the fully recommend for living with familes. We've also established that "pit bull type" covers most medium sized dogs, not ust the pedigree American Pit Bull Terrier. The dog that bit Ellie was not a pedigree APBT. It was deemed of "pit bull type", and if you've read the criteria they use, it's ridiculously vague.

As for SBTs being bred to fight - there are backyard breeders that breed staffies, ABs, "pit bull type" crossbreeds, Rotties, and tonnes of other breeds for fighting. These breeders are in the minority and decent breeders of Staffies are no more breeding them to fight than Mrs Jones up the road is breeding her Lhasa Apsos to. You ban a breed for the acts of a minority, and all you do is make them more appealing to the very people you don't want owning them. Do you honestly think banning breeds stops criminals fighting them? It's been 16 years since "pit bull types" were banned, and dog fighting is on the increase, not disappearing.

Dogs have to be trained to fight. The fighting dogs are also trained to be incredibly "bombproof" with people, or they'd have no chance of removing them from the pit. Disgusting and illegal sport, but no more likely to produce a kid killer than any other dog/breed.

As for The Sun's coverage, they've got a hell of a lot of rubbish from nowhere - all the quotes from local residents I saw on the day were saying what a soft dog this was, but utterly terrified of fireworks, which were going off at the time of the attack. There was one mention of a 69 year old man alleging the dog had attacked him and he had fended it off with a walking stick. What wasn't mentionned in many reports was that the old man was walking his dog, Reuben had been aggressive to the dog but was in his ow garden. I thought it strange at the time that a 69 year old man without full use of his body would've been able to fight off a "raging devil dog", the fact is the facts weren't given. The man surely believed he was being attacked, but there's no way he'd ben here to tell the tale if he was (interestingly the man didn't report having been "savaged" until after what happened the other day, despite it allegedly having happened some time ago).

It doesn't make a blind bit of difference what breed Reuben was. It matters that a child died. Any dog is capable of that, it just doesn't make good press to cover the dozens of dog bites per day/week that were by less badly publicised breeds.

My son was badly bitten by a dog in our house. Should that dog's breed be banned? Because he was a greyhound.

More recently, I was out walking our then foster Staffie (who had probably been abused by potential fighters/involved in fighting). We were launched on by a stray dog, my son was petrified and Angus the staffie was bitten all over his face, requiring treatment. Angus didn't even try to fight back. The breed of the stray? A collie cross. The law worked in this case because the dog's owner was fined under the DDA for having a dog dangerously out of control in a public place.

When I was a trainee vet nurse, one day we had two dogs come in for surgery. One was a registered "pit bull" and the other was a gorgeous, pretty little tiny jack russell *****, coming in to be spayed. I'll let you guess which dog scarred my arm with a nasty bite, but needless to say it wasn't Big Bob.

I now have Dharma the Bullmastiff. On other boards, Bullmastiffs are being slagged off unecessarily much like Staffies and other breeds because of what has happened. However, I have raised her properly, socialised her well, and never had any reason for concern. I put the work in and got the dog we deserved. Same for any other dog, you reap what you sow (if you're lucky enough to get them early on when it matters).

BANNING BREEDS DOESN'T WORK.

Punish the deed, not the breed.

 

[fenwoman]

While we're talking about dog attacks, do any of you who know a lot about dogs have any tips for fending off a dog attack? I know this wouldn't help a child but I just wondered for adults? I avoid any dogs I don't like the look of (they know when you're scared) but suppose you can't get away? I hope my question isn't insensitive given that an innocent child has died.

Keep still, don't raise your voice or scream, don't run away or wave your arms about and speak firmly and slowly to the dog telling it to sit. Most dogs have been taught to sit . Do NOT stare at the dog as this is a sign of aggresion. Walk slowly backwards, still talking to the dog calmly and quietly and look around to see if you can see the owner.
Should the worst happen and the dog does attack you, turn your back and cross your arms to minimise damage. Still do not run or scream if you can help it as this will trigger excitement and more aggression. I have to say though, in all my years being involved with dogs, rescue, breeding, showing, grooming, I have never heard of anyone I know, or personally witnessed an attack. The only time I have been bitten was when visiting someone I knew who failed to tell me that her ***** had just had puppies. I walked through the front door and before I closed the door behind me, the collie rushed over and clamped on to my thigh.Despite the pain and shock I just stood still and called the owner who pulled the dog off and put her in another room. Instead of some nasty punture wounds and swollen bruised thigh, it could have been a lot worse had I screamed, waved my hands about, hit the dog or tried to run.
However, remember that dog attacks are very very rare.