Kris­tel Marie Ram­nath

The web of life con­nects all liv­ing crea­tures on earth so it is no won­der that the im­mi­nent procla­ma­tion of the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act is stir­ring so many hu­man emo­tions. Cries against an­i­mal cru­el­ty, talk of dog geno­cide, the in­evitable aban­don­ment of in­no­cent pets are rife in the me­dia. Is all this fuss re­al­ly jus­ti­fied? There is no doubt that leg­is­la­tion is nec­es­sary in T&T to pro­tect our so­ci­ety from at­tacks by dogs; but the pro­posed Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act is clear­ly not the choice of many cit­i­zens and dog own­ers. This act is mod­eled on the UK Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act 1991 which has been de­scribed as "the worst piece of leg­is­la­tion ever passed in the UK", and is cur­rent­ly be­ing re­pealed and changed due to hav­ing failed. The con­se­quences of the UK act in­clude the mass aban­don­ment of those breeds pro­hib­it­ed by the act; and no sig­nif­i­cant de­crease has been not­ed in the num­ber of dog at­tacks on hu­mans since the act came in­to pow­er. Does the gov­ern­ment of T&T feel ca­pa­ble of en­forc­ing a piece of leg­is­la­tion which has proved un­suc­cess­ful in a first world coun­try that has many more re­sources and tech­nol­o­gy than we could dream pos­si­ble here?

The T&T Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act lists three types: the pit­bull ter­ri­er (or any dog bred from the pit­bull ter­ri­er); the Fi­la Brasileiro (or any dog bred from the Fi­la Brasileiro); and the Japan­ese Tosa (or any dog bred from the Japan­ese Tosa). Is the gov­ern­ment aware that the last two breeds are al­most un­heard of in T&T and that the pit­bull ter­ri­er is not a breed of dog? Pit­bull is a term used to de­scribe sev­er­al breeds of dogs in the moloss­er fam­i­ly, the most pop­u­lar three be­ing the Amer­i­can pit­bull ter­ri­er, Amer­i­can Stafford­shire ter­ri­er and the Stafford­shire bull ter­ri­er. Moloss­er is a cat­e­go­ry of large, solid­ly-built dog with heavy bones, pen­dant ears (cropped ears are mu­ti­la­tions), a rel­a­tive­ly short and well-mus­cled neck, and a short muz­zle. This act does not spec­i­fy what would be con­sid­ered a "pit­bull ter­ri­er" in a court of law, hence the en­trance of con­fu­sion when a mag­is­trate has to ver­i­fy the breed based sole­ly on ap­pear­ance. I rec­om­mend two pieces of foun­da­tion or cor­ner­stone leg­is­la­tion be­fore a Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act is im­ple­ment­ed. T&T has an ex­ist­ing act, 1918 which des­per­ate­ly needs up­dat­ing and re­in­forc­ing. This act should in­clude the reg­is­tra­tion and li­cens­ing of all dogs in the re­pub­lic. It is un­for­tu­nate that we have come to this, but too many of us have been ig­no­rant and ir­re­spon­si­ble (and there­fore in­ad­ver­tent­ly cru­el) in our own­er­ship of an­i­mals and we must now all pay the price. There should be dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of own­er­ship with price ranges to al­low all peo­ple to still be able to af­ford a pet. Those own­ers who are keep­ing a dog as a com­pan­ion should pay a min­i­mal or non-pro­hib­i­tive li­cence fee per year; those who wish to breed their dogs should pay a high­er fee; those with work­ing dogs should pay a dif­fer­ent fee etc. Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the own­er of the dog should be made manda­to­ry. I rec­om­mend the com­pul­so­ry mi­cro-chip­ping of all dogs up­on reg­is­tra­tion. This pro­ce­dure in­volves the in­ser­tion of a com­put­er mi­cro-chip in­to the shoul­der of the dog via an in­jec­tion. The chip has a code which can be "read" by a mi­cro-chip scan­ner (sim­i­lar to a su­per­mar­ket bar-code) and the dog's code and cor­re­spond­ing own­er de­tails are stored in a data­base. If a dog is found at­tack­ing a hu­man, his own­er can be traced by the code and his own­er will there­fore be held ac­count­able for the ac­tions of his dog. This is a more hu­mane method of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion than tat­too­ing or the sug­gest­ed brand­ing of the pin­na (ear-lobe) of the dog in this act. The gov­ern­ment has al­so failed to re­alise that the ears of most pit­bull ter­ri­ers are cropped, leav­ing no pin­na avail­able for brand­ing.

Ag­gres­sion is a ge­net­ic trait and is there­fore passed from par­ent to off­spring through in­dis­crim­i­nate breed­ing. Al­though many breed­ers in T&T abide by un­spo­ken eth­i­cal rules, there are still those who view dogs as breed­ing ma­chines and use them sole­ly as a form of in­come with no re­gard for the wel­fare of the an­i­mal. The for­ma­tion of a breed­er's club should fall un­der the Dogs Act, 1918; which should reg­u­late and mon­i­tor the ac­tions of breed­ers. If you want to be a breed­er and sell dogs, you must be reg­is­tered with this club and you must sub­mit to reg­u­lar in­spec­tions of your premis­es and dogs. This is to en­sure that the dogs are healthy and hap­py; and that you are breed­ing for sound tem­pera­ment and away from neg­a­tive traits such as ag­gres­sion and anx­i­ety. Ag­gres­sion is al­so de­vel­oped through the en­vi­ron­ment in which a pup­py is raised. Prospec­tive dog own­ers should all ed­u­cate them­selves about dogs in gen­er­al (his­to­ry, phys­i­cal health, men­tal and emo­tion­al needs etc), the traits and re­quire­ments of the spe­cif­ic breed they de­sire, and should choose a dog most like­ly to be com­pat­i­ble with their lifestyle. The Dogs Act, 1918 should in­clude a train­er's club which reg­u­lates and mon­i­tors the ac­tions of train­ers. All dogs should re­ceive ba­sic obe­di­ence train­ing us­ing the tech­nique of re­ward-based train­ing and own­ers should un­der­stand why this is nec­es­sary and how to re­in­force good be­hav­iours in their pets. No dog should be trained in ag­gres­sion and no dog should suf­fer from pun­ish­ment-based train­ing where pain and fear are used as pri­ma­ry mo­ti­va­tors. Ag­gres­sion-train­ing teach­es a dog to bite, where­as Na­ture her­self guards against this by teach­ing pup­pies to in­stinc­tive­ly in­hib­it bit­ing when they play-fight. It is shame­ful that T&T has no An­i­mal Wel­fare Act, which is the sec­ond piece of leg­is­la­tion I rec­om­mend. It is com­mon knowl­edge that if the wel­fare of an an­i­mal (in­clud­ing a hu­man be­ing) is com­pro­mised, this cre­ates neg­a­tive emo­tions which are ex­pressed through neg­a­tive be­hav­iours. If we are en­cour­aged to abide by the Five Free­doms of an­i­mal wel­fare, our pets will be much too hap­py to be­come "dan­ger­ous". I fear the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is bit­ing off more than they can chew. A sep­a­rate body should be formed by the gov­ern­ment to reg­u­late and en­force any an­i­mal-re­lat­ed leg­is­la­tion: with prop­er­ly-trained staff; suit­able ac­com­mo­da­tions for un­want­ed an­i­mals await­ing re-hom­ing or hu­mane eu­thana­sia (on­ly if proven to be im­pos­si­ble to re­ha­bil­i­tate or re-home); suf­fi­cient re­sources; and a pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme teach­ing about bite-pre­ven­tion, re­spon­si­ble pet own­er­ship and an­i­mal wel­fare.