Dangerous Dog Act

I don't get to take a tiger for walkies if I want to, nor slip an alligator into the local pool.

Animals are just animals (and this coming from a veggie!), they don't choose their behaviour. If their natural behaviour is incompatible with human society they should simply be left in the wild. If their bred behaviour is incompatible with human society they should not be bred to live in human society.

I cannot express my sympathy for those parents.

Mitch
 
Shepards, Labs, Dobermen and everything from yipping chihuahua's to hounds and even an occasional pack of dogs. But no, no pitbulls; I fail to see how that's relevant?
 
Roll out leashes? You've got to be kidding. A dog can't run on one of those unless its owner is an Olympic sprinter with the stamina of a marathon runner.



How bizarre. I've never heard of anything like that before. It's very rare to see dogs on the street without an owner (or even off the leash) in the UK.



I can't say I've ever seen that. Its only happened to one animal that I ever knew in my lifetime. I tend to put my dog on the lead once we get within 25m of a road but the rest of the time, unless there is a 'dogs on leads only' sign, she's off the lead.

As has been mentionned earlier, statistically in the Uk your child is more likely to be murdered, mugged, indecently assaulted or injured in a traffic accident than mauled by an off-lead dog. At least 50% of these very few incidents (averaging about 2 a year tops in a population of 60 million) do seem to occur in homes rather than in public.
 
the dangerous dog act includes dogs acting aggressively in public regardless of breed.
 
According to the link at the front of this thread, "The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991... bans the breeding and sale or exchange of four kinds of dog - pit bull terriers, Japanese Tosas, the Dogo Argentinos, and the Fila Brasileiros. Cross-breeds of those dogs are covered by the law.

Any other dogs "appearing... to be bred for fighting or to have the characteristics of a type bred for that purpose" are also banned."

Yet, further in the article, it states that, "The dog that killed five-year-old Ellie Lawrenson is undergoing tests to determine its breed - the law may not apply if the animal is found not to be a pit bull terrier." It seems that being a pit bull is relevant to the law.

But, to be more specific, since they weren't pitbull terriers, Japanese Tosas, the Dogo Argentinos or the Fila Brasileiros, were any of the labs, shepherds, dobies, chihuahuas or hounds that you encountered "bred for fighting or... have the characteristics of a type bred for that purpose?" Again, my point is simply that these types of laws miss the boat to some degree, as they focus more on the dogs and less on the people or the industry involved.
 
Most of the problems that we have with dogs is based soley upon the owner's sholders. I love big dogs and have always owned big dogs- I grew up with danes and my first dogs were chow mixes. If you are going to own a dog that is more powerful then you are (and let's face reality, my little poodle mix is capable of blinding or severly hurting a child, so little dogs should be included) you should be responsible enough to properly raise your dog.

Blaming breeds is utter nonsense. Is there bad breeding? Yes. Can that be overcome? In the majority of cases, yes. Basically, blaming breeds is nothing but a cover up for people. It makes people feel better to say "oh, its a breed trait" when the dog does something undesirable rather then the truth, "oh, I am a crap owner and I never bothered to establish a leadership role with my dog and my dog took the position instead and now runs roughshod over people because I taught him that it was acceptable."
 
I had a rather uncomfortable moment a week or two ago. I was walking to the pub and a dog (a pit bull 'type' breed, I'm not an expert) was wandering around sniffing car tyres and the like totally unattended. This isn't very unusual in Birmingham suburbs, people from around here tend to be *******s in every aspect of their lives. I was quite happy with this state of affairs, until it saw me, then it looked up and charged right towards me, full bloody pelt. Every hair on every part of my body stood on end, for a second I really thought it was gonna have a go. Luckily for me it just bolted past me down the road, then it turned round and ran back past me. He was playing with me, I guess to see if he could get me to run away from him, luckily my super MA training came through for me and I just stood there (read: froze), I was not a comfortable lad. After a couple of laps I carried on walking whilst silently making a deal with every christian, muslim, hindu and mormon God that if the dog got bored it would just go away and not decide to eat me that I would be a better person. As you can tell by my presence here today, the Gods held up their end of the deal and as a result I let an old woman go in front of me in the supermarket queue to hold up mine.

My point is this, what if I hadn't been 6'3" and 200lbs? If I had been a young kid would the dog have played so nice? And what if a dogwalker had stumbled upon this dog, would they have come away so cleanly. This dog, which certainly in hindsight appears to be harmless if a little mischievous managed to scare the living crap out of me and its owner was nowhere to be found. Clearly these dogs are being bred illegally and bought by the less responsible members of society, so tougher licensing laws as well as harsher penalties for those who breach them need to be brought in to force.
 
Fair point hoyheadjch. Not the sort of thing I ever saw when I was living in Birmingham, but then I lived in Harborne and Edgebaston.

Actually there is one family just 25m from my house whose dog roams a bit, but this is also the family who regularly have their back gate ramraided by the police in search of things. Which I suppose gets us all back to the business of the nature of the owners.

I agree the penalities for illegal breeding and keeping of naimals should be harsher, but perhaps we are targetting the wrong thing? I'm not saying that canine legislation doesn't need scrutiny it does, but it is a drop in the ocean compared to the more likely horrible things that could happen to any one of us that need greater penaities and preventative measures.
 
Bah, I think it's all who raises the dog. Crap people = crap dog. One of the workers this morning was late because his neighbors pitbull ran over and bit him. Today he is going over with a shotgun and a rope to kill it. The neighbor has about 7 pits that all get chained up all day with no running or human companionship at all. They get fed, but that's about it. That drives a dog nuts no matter what breed (we have a lab mix and he is a little nuts from it, but we let him off more frequently now, I'm admitting that we neglected him a little and we are paying the price) methinks.

The same guy who got bit by the pit this morning used to have a kettle with pits. Now he just has a few of em'. He loves them but he gives off that if his dog even looked at him wrong he'd put a nice cap in him. He also takes care of his dogs like you wouldn't believe. From the stories he tells about his dogs, they seem great. Same breed of dog, different dogs altogether from yard to yard based simply on the owners. I would have to agree with Wry's post entirely. If worst comes to worst then dogs shouldn't be banned, but rather that you would have to have something like a permit or a qualification process to be able to own a dangerous dog.

I for one love pitbulls. They're good looking animals and I just like em' cause they fit my personality I guess. I may be buying one when I move from the same guy in my little story here when he breeds his dogs. I wouldn't not want to not be able to get a dog because of a law : /, it's kind of a downer.
 
Well I managed to pick out the only pitbull in that little on line quiz (despite disagreeing with the first "fact" that Staffy's come under the term "pitbull").
Perhaps I should be consulted during court cases?

While I can partly agree that the owner of a dog is very important to how it behaves the breed is also a factor. Pitbulls have very high prey drives, high aggression and high pain tolerance. Hell many pitbulls just love to fight no matter how well they are raised. That is what really defines a pitbull (as any committed dogfighter will tell you) not how it looks.

The general public just can't be trusted with a dog of that level. Same way they can't be trusted with guns. Many people own both quite safely. However many don't.
I think a UK ban was the right thing to do given the degree to which pitbulls were being bred here at the time.
We've just started getting American Bulldogs over here in larger numbers. I hope that one of those doesn't attack a child as I can see them getting added to the dangerous dogs act quite easily.
 
I dont think most people realise just how destructive Pitt Bulls can be ?

My Dad used to a have a Pitt Bull Staff cross, everyone thought she was a lovelly dog, then she started to eat through doors when she was locked in, she ate the skirting board down to the brickwork.

She was only small but she could leap to throat hight. anyway she finally flipped and killed several sheep and goats, ripped them to shreds litteraly, the farmer had to beat her off with an iron bar.

Anyway these dogs are killers and will easily kill a man, turns out that the Pitt Bull Staff cross is particularly unstable.
 
Part of the problem in this country is the rise in (illegal) dog-fighting, for which pitbulls and pitbull-crosses are being bred and trained.

Throwing the book at anyone caught doing this would surely help things a lot.
 
Here's the problem, your dad got a dog that needs a lot of attention, not good for being left alone in the house. If the dog had been used as a working terrier or ratter or just acompanying someone all day at an outside job a very different result may have happened.

A dog needs to be kept busy some dogs more than others.
 
Sadly the penalties for cruelty to animals in this country are pretty drippy. Apparently you can be jailed for up to five years for animal cruelty but in practice you tend to see slightly lame sentences like a ban from keeping animals for 18 months plus occasionally a short suspended sentence.
 
agreed moosey, and the cops are even less interested in catching them (personal experience)

My main intention with this thread was to see if there were alternatives to the DDA, not endorsement of it.

I believe licencing ALL dogs is a better system, and any lack of training or abuse for ANY dog = lifetime ban of ever keeping animals.
 
what would you know about ?

Its not like the dog was kept locked up all the time, but people do on occasion keep dogs in the house, so go and judge someone else's Dad,

My old man has had lots of dogs and knows how to handle them, this dog was well looked after and well cared for, it was though in my opinion unstable hence the masacre of sheep and goats.
 
What would I know about it, more than you and your dad obviously! I have never got a dog that was unsuitable for me and have only had to put dogs down due to old age. Never mind I said something you don't agree with, get over it.
 
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