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Another child killed in UK


WalkedUp
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-60829837

Such sad news. Parents and or the dog’s owner should face manslaughter and neglect charges.

Dogs are out of control everywhere. I occasionally teach post grads as a guest lecturer, my host is an intelligent academic and last week in Sefton Park her child went to hospital for stitches and antibiotics as a dog ran up in the park and ripped a croissant (and almost the fingers) from his hand. On Saturday I was on the beach in Wales having a picnic in the rocks, two Samoyeds ran up, one to my niece eating a sandwich in the surf trying to jump and get it. I shouted to her not to move and yelled at the dog. The other Samoyed barrelled over behind me into the small children eating on the picnic blanket. Obviously I turned and gave it the back of my hand, sending it flying through the air away from my family to safety. The owner a grim looking old woman shouted that I was a bully! I just saved her dogs’ lives 🙈

Edited by WalkedUp
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There is, or I think there is, as simple solution. All dogs over whatever age it is usually done are chipped and that chip links to a valid, compulsory insurance of £100 per year. Failure being a criminal offence. If a dog is found unchippedor chipped and not insured the owner is fined £500 and the dog confiscated. If the fine is not paid within twenty-one days the dog is destroyed and the fine is doubled. If a loose dog is found unchipped it is destroyed immediately. If found loose chipped and insured then accidents happened and it is simply returned to the owner as normal with no fine as now happens with a found lost dog.

Edited by enfieldspares
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4 hours ago, Gordon R said:

You can introduce insurance, licensing etc, but who will enforce it? I seem to recall David Cameron was talking about 5 years for knife crime - never happened. 

 

^^^^ This. Whilst it's absolutely tragic what happened it is impossible and undesirable to legislate for the risks of living. You cant have life without death. What is life if legislation is so tight that its not worth living? 

I am not for a moment saying that there are not improvements that could be made but it has to be in proportion. I don't want to eat my dinner with a spoon.  

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It’s also about education any dog can be a killer. My sister tried re- homing  a spaniel after hers had passed away  lots of pedigree but had a mean streak as it had decided  it ruled the roost . It went for me ( And lost as I grabbed it by its throat flipped him over and pined it down until it stoped snarling and growling at me  ) the re - homing  charity stated it had mild protection issues !?! But admitted it had been to 3 other homes and returned!

I would not trust and dog with a baby or child. but some dogs are worse than others and unless some regulation is put in place we are going to get the most upsetting new that we got this morning. 
 
At the end of the day a child has lost its life and I suspect parents have now got to live with there decision of there decision 

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8 hours ago, enfieldspares said:

There is, or I think there is, as simple solution. All dogs over whatever age it is usually done are chipped and that chip links to a valid, compulsory insurance of £100 per year. Failure being a criminal offence. If a dog is found unchippedor chipped and not insured the owner is fined £500 and the dog confiscated. If the fine is not paid within twenty-one days the dog is destroyed and the fine is doubled. If a loose dog is found unchipped it is destroyed immediately. If found loose chipped and insured then accidents happened and it is simply returned to the owner as normal with no fine as now happens with a found lost dog.

There is a snag to this.  Dogs are usually chipped from about 6 weeks upwards .......... but chips do fail.  When I take mine for her vaccination, or any other visit to the vet, they check the chip.  I asked if they always check the chips, assuming it was a sort of ID check - but apparently it is mainly to check that the chip is still there and in working order.

Most owners might not know that the chip has failed until the next vet visit (assuming all vets check chips?)

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Sad to say there is a feral sub-class of people who will only toe the line under certain fear of being caught and a harsh penalty when caught. It has always been so. But now it seems we have all been failed by today's modern policing as such folk have lost that terror and as a society we are the worst for it. 

Edited by enfieldspares
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The licensing procedure for these dog rehoming organisations need a major overhaul in how they operate - especially with regard to the competence and knowledge base/experience of rating a dogs' character and likely behaviour by those who are in the decision making process of allocating the dog. Obviously there must be a more rigorous screening and advisory programme of the potential new owners - in particular quantifying risk for household occupants - and the dog.

Sadly the veterinary authorities - both governmental and professional regulatory - appear woefully lacking in devising a credible operating system.

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3 minutes ago, WalkedUp said:

Catnip for idiots.


Yep.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, I wouldn’t have a dog in the family home I couldn’t beat in a fight.

You look at some breeds and know you’d be leaking blood out of an artery before help arrived.

 

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Sad to say that the new owners probably never even considered that a strange dog in the house could be a danger to them or there child.pretty sure most would bin the idea if they had any idea what a dog is capable of .

Most of us on the forum have seen what can happen ,mercifully not to this extreme ,whilst there will always be some who know better I think some form of public service program might help to educate people, especially if there was a few clips of large dogs going mental, I can vividly remember 2 Large dogs attacking my old lurcher my attempts to stop them were a waste of time there was nothing i could do to get them off .

Maybe interviews from parents who had lost children in this way might reinforce the message.

Still very very sad I feel for them ,it was a mistake they will regret for the rest of their days.

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On 23/03/2022 at 08:56, harkom said:

The licensing procedure for these dog rehoming organisations need a major overhaul in how they operate - especially with regard to the competence and knowledge base/experience of rating a dogs' character and likely behaviour by those who are in the decision making process of allocating the dog. Obviously there must be a more rigorous screening and advisory programme of the potential new owners - in particular quantifying risk for household occupants - and the dog.

Sadly the veterinary authorities - both governmental and professional regulatory - appear woefully lacking in devising a credible operating system.

I would intervene earlier than that and make some tight licensing to own a dog to prevent the millions that end up in rehoming centres in the first place. Breed specific legislation is as much use as a chocolate tea pot. 

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13 hours ago, 12gauge82 said:

I would intervene earlier than that and make some tight licensing to own a dog to prevent the millions that end up in rehoming centres in the first place. Breed specific legislation is as much use as a chocolate tea pot. 

As microchipping and registration on a database is mandatory, the breeding of the individual dog, should be definitively recorded. Thereafter those dogs with the genetic make-up of the specific breeds which constitute a risk of aggression should be strictly licensed with regard to future breeding potential - and a register maintained - at a realistic fee structure for the owners. "No Pay" for that? - then a trip to the vets necessary. This would be a small start towards reducing incidence of aggression in the canine population. And as for mandatory education of dog owners - we are barely able to get satisfactory state education for kids nowadays so no chance with that.... oh...and "you can't fix stupid" applies to a significant portion of the  dog owning public. But perhaps I am wrong here as there is mandatory certification for use of herbicides, rodenticides, chain saws, etc, etc.  So perhaps another job creation opportunity for officialdom.

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15 hours ago, harkom said:

As microchipping and registration on a database is mandatory, the breeding of the individual dog, should be definitively recorded. Thereafter those dogs with the genetic make-up of the specific breeds which constitute a risk of aggression should be strictly licensed with regard to future breeding potential - and a register maintained - at a realistic fee structure for the owners. "No Pay" for that? - then a trip to the vets necessary. This would be a small start towards reducing incidence of aggression in the canine population. And as for mandatory education of dog owners - we are barely able to get satisfactory state education for kids nowadays so no chance with that.... oh...and "you can't fix stupid" applies to a significant portion of the  dog owning public. But perhaps I am wrong here as there is mandatory certification for use of herbicides, rodenticides, chain saws, etc, etc.  So perhaps another job creation opportunity for officialdom.

And what specific breeds carry a genetic risk of aggression? 

I'll answer that one for you, they all do, all dogs are related to the wolf! 

Breed specific legislation doesn't work, the problem lies with people and unless some legislation is created that tackles the route cause, we won't see a reduction in dog attacks. 

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Many mitigating thoughts on breed type/ compulsory Insurance and Chipping etc but it all boils down to the absolute stupidity of leaving a toddler alone with a Dog, who knows what the child was doing at the time of the attack? Not defending the Dog but any animal will attack if it considers itself under threat, the child could have been taking food from it's bowl or trying to ride it like a horse whilst poking it in the eyes, anything is possible. But tragedy aside, the parent responsible for the child's care should face prosecution.

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2 hours ago, bruno22rf said:

Not defending the Dog but any animal will attack if it considers itself under threat, the child could have been taking food from it's bowl or trying to ride it like a horse whilst poking it in the eyes, anything is possible.

Only an untrained dog would show any aggression in any of those circumstances.

I would never leave my (or any) dogs with children but all those things you mention have been done to my dogs at some stage. If they had shown any aggression to a human in any circumstance they are dead dogs. I accept that most people cannot train dogs. I can’t remember the last time I saw a well trained dog not on a shoot. When I dug the hole to bury my dog I’d made it a little deeper and bigger than needed. I spoke to my neighbour and offered to throw his grim little terrier in it too. He declined even though that noise machine brings nothing but misery to his life. People cannot see the wood for the trees with dogs. 

In terms of breed specific legislation.  We all knew what type of dog this mutt was going to be before it was announced. No one was thinking spaniel. A compulsory DNA register of ownership of dangerous breeds and formal transfer surely would help prevent so many of these cases. Alternatively a minimum 10-year spell for the breeder and every known previous or current owner (or dog shelter operator) for a dog that kills a child. Given the choice I would have the owners et al dancing at the end of a rope but I appreciate there isn’t enough support to reinstate capital punishment. Either way it would sort the men from the boys. A life for a life. 

Edited by WalkedUp
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The ultimate responsibility for any dogs behavior, is its owners. The dog is a animal , which is supposed to be less intelligent than the human it belongs to .

I work with the public every day , and find the above , in many cases , not to be the case.   Self discipline , that of their children and their  Animals leave much to be desired.

Ill be in a tin in the next twenty years , so what will be will be.

 

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The trouble with legislation based on genetics is that it's too narrow a definition. Anything outside that - even if it has been bred to have the same characteristics - are automatically legal, even if they carry a similar risk. 

The government went the other way, so the directives are based on biometrics, not necessarily genetics. The trouble with that is the biometrics are taken as a comparison to any one of the four banned breeds (P-B terrier, Japanese Tosa, Dogo Argentino and Fila Brasileiro). That's how things like the Bully XL get missed: they don't match up enough to any of the physical characteristics of any of those four.  But both ignore two criteria factors that are probably the single most defining features of a dog's dangerousness: character and ownership. My friend's got a dog defined as dangerous by biometrics and genetics with a breed exemption. The courts decided she's not a danger to the public so is on the Index of Exempt Dogs, but she still has to be muzzled and leaded when out in public and proven to live in a secure place despite being no more dangerous than a spaniel. It sort of makes a mockery of the whole thing, because it proves dogs' dangerousness isn't about genetics or characteristics.

I think rescue centres have a lot to answer for, but many people are idiots. Education can only go so far if people don't listen to sensible advice. There should have been warning signs for both buyer and seller. The more legislation you bring in, the more people will fight against it and these incidents will keep happening.

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11 hours ago, bruno22rf said:

Many mitigating thoughts on breed type/ compulsory Insurance and Chipping etc but it all boils down to the absolute stupidity of leaving a toddler alone with a Dog, who knows what the child was doing at the time of the attack? Not defending the Dog but any animal will attack if it considers itself under threat, the child could have been taking food from it's bowl or trying to ride it like a horse whilst poking it in the eyes, anything is possible. But tragedy aside, the parent responsible for the child's care should face prosecution.

This is it.

Why do we need to legislate for stupidity?

The message should be ‘your choice, your responsibility’.

If you want to bring 10 stone of muscle and teeth into your own home - fill your boots, it’s all on you. 

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