Any of the doghouse crew watching the dangerous dogs thing on Beeb

[MmeLindor.]

I cannot help but think that people like that should be put down, not the poor dogs.

And that it is horrible that because of wankers like these that dogs are being pts.

Now they have the tape measure out.

See, I know nothing about dogs!

Thank you for telling me; it makes perfect sense that any big/medium dog will be hard to restrain, especially if it's untrained and/or abused. So why pitbulls in particular then? There are other breeds covered in the Act as well, if I remember rightly, but that may be my imagination. It was a long time ago.

I have no idea what can be done about the rescue home problem. People have to stop breeding their dogs, I guess. A bit like the cat community - allowing your cat to have kittens is very frowned upon these days. You are considered an irresponsible owner. People do it anyway (have done it myself once).

To be fair, bull breeds can be very strong for their size. But there are bigger, stronger dogs out there which are not banned. Yes there are a few other breeds banned under the Act (certain large mastiff-types IIRC), though I think they tend to be seen less often.

I completely agree about breeding, this is the root of a lot of dog problems - uncontrolled irresponsible over-breeding. I think it is often frowned upon among more responsible owners, especially if the breed already has an 'over-supply' problem - but then the sorts of people who breed illegal types don't care about that...

Dog licenses were abolished a while ago now. Would you support their re-introduction? (Just curious.)

Personally I wouldn't mind paying for a dog license if I thought it would help the general dog situation - though I'm not sure there's convincing evidence that it would. No problem with it in principle though.

I'm young enough not to have ever had a dog licence...but as I understand it, it was more a tax on owning a dog than anything useful?

I'd be in favour of some sort of licencing scheme though

I remember, as a child, my mum explaining to me that if you hit a dog with your car then you had to report it because of the license, but if you hit a cat you didn't have to inform anyone. Struck me as incredibly unfair?

You might not have to pay for a license, or not much, maybe. But owning a dog could require you to have one, and not having one incur fines which would be steeper if your dog wasn't properly treated.

Oh, I don't know.