Dog attacks still increasing - is it time to bring back proper licensing?

I would suggest that there should be some sort of 'cut off date' so that if you owned a dog prior to a particular date you could get a free licence covering that animal.

Then people will get the next big aggressive dog. Google searches for Cane Corso for sale have really increased since the XL bully ban l

As to the debate, my two-pence worth is that there need to be tougher rules around dog ownership.

• give police/councils stop and seize powers to take dogs into their keeping on the spot

• make dog bites requiring medical or veterinary treatment reportable incidents in the same way that certain medical conditions are notifiable to authorities. Dog wardens, police on patrol, etc can then target problem areas under various initiatives (and where the owner is known, the dog can be directly taken)

• dogs that bite get risk-assessed by a vet (at owners expense) no risk-assessment or a failed assessment = humanely destroyed

• dogs over a certain size and/or of a specific breed cannot be privately owned and can only be owned as certified working dogs

• inspection and licensing required for breeding dogs, all other dogs to be neutered. Get rid of sites like Pets4Homes, etc and make it so animals can only be bought and sold via approved channels (e.g., a gov.uk owned site). No "free to a good home" bullshit.

• insurance made compulsory including liability insurance for if your dog bites someone

• no dogs off-lead in public unless it's an approved area (e.g., licensed dog park)

• no dogs allowed to be in the care of under 18s in public (obviously dogs such as guide dogs would be exempt)

• proper certification for assistance dogs, no more Mitzy the Dickhead Dog being passed off an 'emotional support animal' just because the owner doesn't want them at home

• no dogs in shops that aren't a pet shop, guide dogs excepted

• if a cafe/pub allows dogs then they must also provide a dog-free area

No measure, or set of measures, will stop idiots owning dogs but they should make it more difficult to get away with it to minimise the number of idiots of dogs.

For comparison purposes..

When vehicles started needing registration and drivers needed licencing, around 1903 - there were under 13000 cars on the road. Even by the time you needed to pass a driving test to get that licence, in 1935 there were still only just over 2 million vehicles.

The vehicle licencing and registration system has grown as car ownership has grown, over many decades.

There are around 13.5 million dogs in the uk and I'd say thats a low estimate, as its mostly generated from insurance figures, and of course not all dogs are insured.

To bring in a comprehensive and useful database comparable to the DVLA for that many animals at once, would be extremely difficult and an up front cost that the taxpayer would absolutely baulk at.

Mine wears one because she's a greedy little fucker and will eat anything vaguely food-like that comes within her reach including half-decomposed seagull, dropped ice creams, slugs, a live crab that had to be pried from her mouth, seaweed, half a hamburger she found in a bush, and very-almost a splatter of (presumably human) vomit that we managed to by-pass by bare centimetres.

I don't see how a post bite infection means the initial bite was serious. People can get sepsis from the most minor of injuries. Things like being pricked by a rose thorn can land someone in hospital.

Brilliant suggestion

The view that there shouldn’t be licensing because some people will ignore it and it’ll be hard to enforce is really odd.

Murder is illegal but some people still do it and some of them get away with it. Shall we legalise that?

Taxi drivers need a licence but there are still
unlicensed taxis around, so shall we not bother?

What happens if the dog bite gets infected ?

Or the person loses the use or feeling of their hand or fingers because the tendons are bitten through ?

Is that classed as serious ?

Some dogs wear a muzzle because they're dog-aggressive rather than human aggressive too.

No app would work as phones can not read the type of chips that pet microchips are (low frequency RDIF) . They simply do not have the capability.
Even if they could, you would never be able to do it discretely as they would have to be very close to the chip. You would be pretty much handling the dog.
Plus chips can and do migrate. My own dog's chip in at the at the top and front of her leg. So if you scanned her neck, you would think she has no chip at all.

I wish the microchip system could be sorted.

If we had a single chip database - which could only be updated by the owner, breeder, registered rescues and vets...

And crucially - data can never be removed from the chip or database - so the chip will show every owner from breeder to current day...

And the onus is on both seller and buyer to update the chip on selling/rehoming... if someone is found to own a dog and they're not on the chip record, big penalty to both current keeper and previous owner!

And... legally if you're on that dogs record you stand a chance of being held liable for something that dog does... so you sell the dog, it immediately eats a kid - your actions/behaviour/housing/training of that dog might be looked at...

Everyones going to behave a lot more responsibly!

We could link vet records, incidents that involved police/dog warden, attendance to training classes, to the dogs chip and thus to the owner at the time.

It would still require a chip to be scanned to reveal that information, I don't really envisage a 'stop and scan' situation happening routinely.

But - a database like that and joined up thinking, costs a lot to set up. We've not had a government in my lifetime that wants to do that, vs passing useless laws that make it look like they're doing something when really they aren't.

There have been seven XL Bully related deaths since Feb 24, bump that up to 11 (I think) if you include some pitbull, mastiff and malinois involvement.

There are also dogs who were not exempted being siezed, and then subsequently returned once exempted.

There are dogs who were exempted who are now being de-exempted which means they can once again run off lead, not wear a muzzle etc etc - because on assessment they do not fit the physical criteria sufficiently and their behaviour isn't deemed dangerous.

Unless something is done to stop the rise of aversive trainers, people training household pets to be attack dogs, and irresponsible breeding, the numbers of deaths will increase again.

One other issue about licensing is that it could include much stricter licence conditions for un neutered owners dogs

There have been no fatalities though so the policy is working. I’m not sure what the definition of a dog attack is - would be very useful info. It could include incidents like the lady yesterday with a chihuahua that bit a ladies hand, which I’d call unfortunate but not a serious attack in the context of the dangerous dogs act.

Phones do not have the required technology, you would also have to have your phone indirect contact with the fur/skin over the microchip area. For our dog thats his right armpit, how would you do that discreetly?

I did not know that. Thanks.

Our neighbours dog is lovely, she’s muzzled as despite intensive and consistent training she will do anything in her power to eat poo. Lots of dogs wear muzzles to stop them eating things on walks.

This is also a point. My dog is chipped. I bought a chip detector as I am often everyone's 'go to' for animals that are lost or injured (just a background in rescue). My detector doesn't find my dog's chip.

Companies are rubbish-I was on hold literally for HOURS trying to get my dog's address changed once. Gave up in the end, emailed them but never got a response-luckily my ex still lives at my old address so if they'd have contacted her rather than me it wouldn't have really mattered, I'd have still got the mesg.

I rescued a dog a few years ago and when I rang to change the address they gave me a rollocking, charged me a not-too-insubstantial amount and then it didn't work! He got lost once (not while in my care) and they called the old owner. Shambles.

But again, the people who get fined won’t care - they’ll just keep going. Just like they do with driving bans and associated fines.

People like that don’t care about fines though - or prison sentences. That’s why it’s always the same repeat offenders doing the same things, regardless of the consequences.

But that’s never used as a reason to abandon driving licenses or car insurance altogether though.

The police no longer investigate crime in this country, so who would police it? Criminals are already getting away with drug dealing, people trafficking, shoplifting, money laundering to name a few crimes. A loose dog isn't going to suddenly have plod investigating and inspecting licences. It's getting like the wild west here now.

Well no, neither would I but the OP obviously did.

There are plenty of people out there who believe they are responsible owners but others would beg to differ.

Car number plates are visible to the many many cameras around the country.

Microchips are not.

Car numberplates are still only actually read when there is an issue, erratic driving, speeding, etc - they don't prevent people from breaking the law or killing people with their cars, and those who actively want to do things, will use false/cloned plates.

There are thousands of cameras - we have a tiny handful of dog wardens.

A chip requires a dog to stand still whilst the scanner is waved thoroughly all over the dog, as despite the chip point being behind the neck/top of shoulders, chips can and do move (commonly enough that of my three current dogs, only one has a chip in the right place, and to date I have had five dogs with chips that have migrated).

The chip database situation is a nightmare - there is no central database, chip companies are not managing the data they have particularly well (eg. dogs flagged as stolen being dumped at rescue and the 'stolen' flag ignored or even removed rather than original owner contacted). Chip companies go out of biz and leave owners of chipped animals screwed, merge databases and lose data entirely, and have varying processes (and charges) for updating chip info meaning it doesn't get done.

There is a lot of infrastructure to put in before licencing is possible, before licencing could fund it. In the past, when you bought a dog licence in the post office, the system did not break even and this is why it was scrapped.

There is a lot that needs to be done before licencing would be useful.

• Regulate the training industry - currently its perfectly legal to set up shop as a trainer or even a behaviourist, slap a shock collar on a dog, turn it into a nervous aggressive nightmare then hand it back to the owner and threaten them with all sorts should they complain.
• Ban the training/sales of 'family protection' dogs - a dog who can safely play with your toddler and take out a bad guy, trained to attack/bite on cue - such a dog does not exist. The perpetuation of the idea that they do has led to many people who cannot afford to import and pay for the training of such a dog (as the tiktok celebs do), to attempt to train these themselves - see my earlier point.
• Regulate heavily the bite sports industry - dogs trained to hold a person at bay, find and bite a person and not let go until told to, chase and bring a person down. Currently, again, anyone can train this, anyone can own such a dog. Again, this is very popular with people who want to use methods like shock collars and force based, pain based training, that has been proven over and over to increase the risk of bite injuries and violent aggression in dogs.
• Look at setting up an ownership test as some other countries do - where you have to exhibit a reasonable degree of knowledge on dog ownership, dog behaviour, training and the law around dogs.
• Ban the commercial farming of dogs on an intensive scale - easily done if you legally require there to be 1 member of staff in the facility for every 3 dogs, at all times.