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

My point is that responsible dog owners don't need any extra legisltion but would probabaly adhere to it but the idiots who cause the problems may not

Putting in a fairly low amount of effort into google will suggest this is wrong, and that dog attacks requiring hospital treatment are steadily on the increase.

Do you have any stats to support it ?

Well said, I agree completely👏🏻😊

I agree in principle, but I have some questions about how it would work in practice. What if my husband gets a dog licence and I don’t - am I unable to walk the dog? What about kids? Or would it be more like a person with a licence can obtain a dog and they are then ultimately responsible for that dog?

So people should just accept it then because it didn’t cause any lasting damage?
Did I say that? No. I just said that attacks have not increased. The defi ition of attack has changed.

I believe we need stricter controls around dog ownership.
Are there other countries with a good system that we could learn from?

The first point I would make is that licensing would give a message to dog owners that having a dog isnt a right and it can be taken away.

The RSPCA published a report many years ago that estimated you would get about 75% compliance with a licensing scheme. One obvious point would be that it would be a very easy 'stick' to beat the sort of owners who were more likley to cause trouble with their dog as they would probably not be licenced.

I’m not saying not to do it - I’m just pointing out that it won’t be the effective system OP and others seem to believe it to be.

The people who own dogs who bite and attack aren’t going to be the people who do the right thing and register their dogs. Just as they don’t muzzle them and keep them on a lead now.

A license won’t actually stop bad owners because they simply won’t bother paying for one. Loads of people don’t take their dogs to a vet, flea or worm or them, or get them neutered. Their dogs just go unregistered and unless something really bad happens, there’s never any consequences.

It's not increasing, it's just that people will now report any incident involving a dog and the media jumping on any incident with dramatic effect.

In this instance, it would appear there was no actual damage. Xrays, that would appear have shown no broken bones and not cut requiring stitches. Some years ago, this would been a case of 'that damned dog that jumped on me'. Now it's 'that savage dog that attacked me and left me traumatised'.

There are dogs owners who don't have a clue about teaching proper discipline to their dogs, but that doesn't amount to an increase in severe attacks.

Sensible people are probably more worried about the insurance implications than the police. That would be my guess.

I don't think a license will make any difference.

Oh, it's possible. It's the up-front cost which will put the government off.

These arguments just don't stand up to any sort of scrutiny.

It fundamentally amounts to saying that it is not worth punishing any crime, because there are always some people who will do it anyway.

Extend that to more serious crimes and it just sounds ridiculous, unless you believe that punishment/enforcement as a principle doesn't work.

The government has said it does not want to raise general taxes. If it doesn't want to raise general taxes like income tax, then it has to raise taxes from other areas.

Except there are plenty of dogs out there who aren’t chipped - despite what the law says.

Our dog is chipped but he’s only ever been scanned for it once which is when he was registered at the vet as a puppy.

Just like there are loads of uninsured drivers and loads of cars that aren’t road legal, MOT’d or taxed.

I don't understand your point?

I'm pretty sure that if the government can do an ID card scheme for people it can do one for dogs, which should be easier. And the cost of it is recovered through the licence.

Alternatively everyone as a society can continue to pay the cost. Personally I don't see why I should have to pay to police dogs. In the same way I don't see why someone who doesn't own a car or watch broadcast TV should have to pay for mine.

But cars are by necessity outside, or they're not causing people any problems. So many of the dogs causing these problems were due to their completely incompetent owners, which often included the fact that they weren't adequately exercised - the problems were mainly indoors.

I'm another who read this article this morning and thought that, dog attacks (or reports thereof, perhaps, rather than incidences?) might be increasing, but the XL Bully ban has surely worked to some extent in that we're not getting the reports of people being killed that we were seeing?

Quite, which is why responsible dog owners don't allow a dog off lead unless its under control.

The people that buy such dogs won’t be the type that buy a licence.

Im seeing more dogs out and about in muzzles, which I suppose is more a sign they’re worried about the police pulling them up and at least other animals are safe.

I'm not sure how this would work for dogs around now.

The chip registries are a mess and often people move and don't let the registry know, or discover that the registry wants to charge them £70 to change the address for two dogs so they don't bother. Chips migrate and can be very difficult to find. Our old dog had one that ended up right down his shoulder somewhere. It's not like a car numberplate which can be read by a camera as the car zooms by.

The whole microchip system was badly thought out in the first place and would need a massive overhaul, a centralised database, and everyone having to ensure that their dog was on it with the correct details.

In theory it could be made to work, but the initial costs will put most governments off even trying.

You probably don't see dog wardens because there is no money to pay for them. Hence the licence.

I actually think the vast majority of dog owners would support this. Because people who are law abiding and own trained well behaved dogs are just as worried about dangerous dogs attacking them and their pets as people who don't own dogs are.

My guess is (I don't know the stats) that dogs are much more in danger of being killed by other out of control dogs than humans are.

I’ve literally never seen a dog warden and have walked my dog multiple times a day every day for 5 years.

There would need to be an awful lot of people recruited to presumably walk the streets to check random dogs and their owners licences to enforce this. So a lot of cost, ignoring the cost to implement the system.

And I say this as the owner of a small dog who is never off lead and with multiple skills/activity classes that we regularly attend - so someone who would easily have a licence.

I don’t object in principle, but there are other places I want my tax monies spent first.

This poster thought their dog was well trained and friendly, until it wasn't.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_doghouse/5421794-my-dog-bit-an-old-lady

So if they are caught without a licence they will be punished, in the same way people who don't have MOTs insurance or tax are punished.

At the end of the day this boils down to something really simple.

There are an increasing amount of dogs in society and their presence has an impact and a cost on the whole of society.

The fundamental question is, should those costs be paid by the people who own the dogs, or society as a whole ?