Rotweillors

[reptile]

What I can't understand (re the recent case in Dundee of a small girl being mauled by 3 rotweillors) is why we can't have a law limiting the number of these dogs people are allowed to own. I'm a dog owner, but why does anyone need/want 3 dogs, let alone rotweillors.
It would be so easy to police, rather than going on a case-by-case basis, if you had to have a license for your dog, and, in the case of dangerous breeds, had to prove your case for owning more than one (or even just one IMO).

doubt this little girl's life will ever be the same again but the owners would probably have claimed these were perfectly normal family pets.

edam the owner had already been in court for not controlling he dogs. i think they might have had an idea that the dogs weren't perfectly normal.

So the owner had been subject to court proceedings but the dogs were STILL roaming the streets? FFS. Why didn't the courts remove the dogs?

...and why did the owner have to give permission to have the dogs destroyed? I always thought that any dog who is reported biting is taken away and destroyed?

the owners probably made all the righ promises to keep them controlled. but really, someone who would let the dog roam in the first place clearly has no concept of what they are doing so it doesn't surprise me that they repeated their mistake.

mousy someone i know is going to court for this right now. her westie bit a passer by. didn't break the skin but it tried to. the owner was asked by the DW what she wanted to happen (yes ask an irresponsible owner what to do ) she has said she wants it to go to court. so off to court they go and the DW has told her that as long as she agrees to take measure to prevent her dog biting again then she will get to keep the dog. IMO she shouldn't even own a dog but that is based on a lot more than this incident.

when i say passer by, the dog is free to to run up and down the road that their house is on. she wasn't walking the dog at the time (she doesn't even walk the bloody dog) the dog just saw the woman walking past and left the garden to follow her. only a matter of time before this happened. she has another dog that bit my son on teh face when he was two. both her and i were in he room and we boh agreed that my ds was nowhere near the dog, not even talking or looking at the dog. ds was watching tv. the dog edged closer and then just went for his face. again, no broken skin but a nip and bruising. she promised to get the dog PTS but it is still here 3 years later and her grand daughter stays with them every weekend.

Vallhala - good story? I'm sure the mother of a child ripped apart by savage dogs of that breed would love it.

Ephiny The story I linked to wasn't just reported in the Daily Mail, but all the newspapers at the time. That was the only article I could find online.

probably not hormones but that stands to reason that she wouldn't want to read it. her daughter has been subjected to a devastating assault. that is extremely traumatic for teh whole family. why on earth would they want to read anything about dogs in the very near future? still, that doesn't mean Val's story is redundant or untrue. does it?

Has anyone found any actual research yet to say that they are a dangerous, aggressive breed and the bad ones are inevitable, due to the breed of dog and not just a product of poor ownership?

By all means campaign to crack down on irresponsible ownership. You could even put your money where mouth is and do something to stop it happening by alerting the police/dog warden when you see dogs being mistreated or mishandled.

I saw a SBT wandering about near a main road not long ago, during school run hours. I was only person to actually do anything to prevent an accident being caused.

But as I keep repeating it is not the breed that is the problem. It is the owners. Eradicate that breed and the eejits will simply attach themselves to a different breed and ruin that one's reputation. I would imagine the Doberman would be the next on their list.

'By all means campaign to crack down on irresponsible ownership.'

But what to me is irresponsible ownership, to a dog owner is the dog being normal, lively and friendly. What to me is a threatening approach, to a dog-lover is a friendly little bounce up and pawing, and I'm being silly not to welcome it. A bite is a nip.
In order for an owner to be considered irresponsible, it seems that the dog has to cause actual injury or be involved in creating a car accident to be worth a police caution. Otherwise the owner objects, sometimes gets to be on the naughty step for a while and asked to be more careful. Tut Tut.
A crackdown would be politically tricky for any party, and very difficult to define what was unacceptable behaviour and ownership.
As I said earlier, give it another 25 years and these sorts of incidents will still be occuring. Nothing will change.

Irresponsible ownership to me is:

Dogs being allowed off leash with less than perfect recall (with the exception of puppies)
Dogs being allowed to wander, unsupervised. Even if they are just in front of their house.
Dogs that do not have at least a basic level of training i.e. Sit, Drop it, Leave etc.
Dogs that aren't walked at least daily
Dogs are kept confined in crates or locked in gardens for excessive amounts of time.
Dogs that are left alone in the house for long periods of time
Dogs that are allowed to jump on passers by
Dogs that are off leash and allowed to approach dogs that are leashed
Dogs that are let off to run near children's play equipment

No dog (again puppes are exempt) should be allowed to give a 'friendly little bounce up' to strangers unless they are invited to do so. And puppies should be taken away immediately if they try to jump up at a stranger, until they are calmer.

"the point is that controlling what the likes of valhalla do does not prevent things like this, because the people who own the dogs involved in these incidents are not sensible or law-abiding."

Thank you, EdgarAllInPink.

PS... no-one controls what Vallhala does!

"But what to me is irresponsible ownership, to a dog owner is the dog being normal, lively and friendly. What to me is a threatening approach, to a dog-lover is a friendly little bounce up and pawing, and I'm being silly not to welcome it. A bite is a nip."

well said

of course they will still be occurring. do you honestly think dog attacks could ever be erradicated? even if it was law to muzzle dogs in public and have them all on leads there would be those people who would flout the law.

benefit fraud is illegal but still happens. people have to do a test to be able to drive but many drive without one.

That looks like a good list to me.
So how to ensure that every dog owner makes sure that their animal does not do any of these things, or have them done to it.
How would you recommend that good ownership be enforced on all dog owners, and what should be the consequences of failure.
How could you prevent an individual from buying as many dogs as they wanted to if they'd been shown to be an irresponsible owner?

I don't know GoblinChild. There are no easy answers. But more dog schools would help. In smaller towns access to good obedience training is often limited. And agility courses/classes to keep dogs minds occupied are few and far between around here too.

What about the owners who don't feel they need any help in training their dogs?
Would you make classes compulsory?
What if the dog and owner failed the class?

I don't think there is much point in making it compulsory. People will always flout the law if they are of that inclination and it would be impossible to police. There will always be back street breeders, willing to sell to anyone. Even with dog licensing, many people will simply not register their dog.

Bringing in penalties, again is only going to punish the people who are trying their best.

This is why I think the answer lies mainly with the general public. How far would those three dogs have got if 99% of the people the passed got out their mobile and rang the police/dog warden?

What on earth could the general public have done to stop those two rottweilers attacking that poor 10yo? Formed a human chain around the dogs at all times?

I don't see how all of us members of the public are able to police dog ownership.

My answer would be a. bring back dog licences and get every dog chipped b. ensure dangerous breeds are either banned or can only be owned by registered people who will take the dog to obedience classes (have to provide proof) and carry public liability insurance. If they want to own a doberman or rottweiler or whatever, they have to commit time and money to proving they are a responsible, fit and proper person who can control that dog.

(My definition of dangerous breeds would be those that are capable of inflicting severe or fatal injury and that would be very difficult for any adult to restrain if they were attacking. Obviously any dog can bite but a spaniel is unlikely to kill you.)

Well they could have reported the dogs as stray and a dog warden may have been able to get to the dogs before they attacked. Does anyone know how long they were wandering for before they attacked?

If they have done this before then it's clear that they were allowed to wander often. If a dog warden got hold of them every time, it would have cost the owners a fortune in fixed penalty fines to get the dogs out of the pound and they would eventually have been charged.

edam a spaniel could kill a small child.

agree with shiny, if even one person that had seen the dogs out alone had contacted the DW it might have meant the girl wasn't attacked.

dog licensing is compulsory here in northern ireland. all 5 dogs that i have ever known to bite were licensed. 2 of them were pts by their owners and 3 of them haven't been.

'dog licensing is compulsory here in northern ireland. all 5 dogs that i have ever known to bite were licensed. 2 of them were pts by their owners and 3 of them haven't been.'

The point I'm trying to make to dog owners is that you should really see this as your responsibility, to get effective rules and laws in place for the responsible ownership of all dogs, and you are the best-placed people to do it. Like being offered the chance to self-regulate that other industries and movements have had.
You do not want the laws designed, put in place and enforced by ignorant, non-dog owners like me. I'd say 5 dogs bite, 5 dogs pts and owners banned for life, linked to heavy fines.