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Monday, July 28, 2025

Dangerous dogs only one part of problem

by

20120423

An­i­mals Alive be­lieves that the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act is skewed and by be­ing breed spe­cif­ic will lead to the need­less demise of three breeds of dogs. It com­plete­ly ig­nores the over­whelm­ing need to im­prove the wel­fare of dogs and im­prove own­er re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on the whole in this coun­try. Dan­ger­ous dogs are on­ly one part of the prob­lem. Why didn't the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al lis­ten when stake­hold­ers spoke out at pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions? Now we have to protest that the law be amend­ed be­fore be­ing pro­claimed and still wait ( I hope not in vain) for an­oth­er act that deals with re­spon­si­ble dog own­er­ship? What in­tel­li­gent peo­ple want­ed was a dog act that com­pre­hen­sive­ly dealt with the role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of dog own­er­ship that would ben­e­fit dogs, own­ers and the in­no­cent pub­lic. We want penal­ties to be im­posed on ig­no­rant, ir­re­spon­si­ble and in­com­pe­tent own- ers.

The dog act would con­tain claus­es that deal with dan­ger­ous dogs, cru­el­ty to dogs, ne­glect, pro­cre­ation lim­i­ta­tions to re­duce over-pop­u­la­tions and un­want­ed lit­ters, and the gen­er­al hu­mane treat­ment of dogs. The Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act of the 1950s is so out­dat­ed that it is al­most de­funct and dogs have lit­tle or no pro­tec­tion from dan­ger­ous own­ers. As far as this act is con­cerned, we agree with the li­cence and the reg­is­tra­tion and even the in­sur­ance (will be un­af­ford­able for some) but not the manda­to­ry spay­ing with the in­ten­tion of erad­i­cat­ing the breeds. We do not agree with hav­ing the min­is­ter deem breeds as dan­ger­ous. That is ar­bi­trary and ridicu­lous.

More over, dogs should be iden­ti­fied as dan­ger­ous by their traits, not breed. As a civ­il so­ci­ety we should craft laws that pro­tect hu­mans and dogs. Is iden­ti­fy­ing a breed eas­i­er than mea­sur­ing traits? It is a fact that there are dan­ger­ous pot hounds, Rot­tweil­ers etc. Re­mem­ber the so-called dev­il dog of Point Fortin (who re­al­ly was no dev­il). If such dogs at­tack hu­mans, their own­ers have no fines to pay or jail terms to face? Come now, Mr AG, this was a poor ef­fort. We are evolv­ing and you need to think more about draft­ing laws that are rel­e­vant to a civ­il so­ci­ety and not just pro­duce what amounts to a knee-jerk re­ac­tions.

Kathryn Cleghorn

Pres­i­dent

An­i­mals Alive


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