There is no doubt that leg­is­la­tion is nec­es­sary in T&T to pro­tect our so­ci­ety from at­tacks by dogs, but the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act is clear­ly not the choice of many cit­i­zens. This act is mod­elled on the UK Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act 1991, which 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.

The T&T Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act lists three types in the sched­ule: the Pit Bull Ter­ri­er, the Fi­la Brasileiro and the Japan­ese Tosa. The Pit Bull Ter­ri­er is not a breed of dog. Pit bull is a term used to de­scribe sev­er­al breeds of dogs in the Moloss­er fam­i­ly, the most pop­u­lar three be­ing the Amer­i­can Pit Bull Ter­ri­er, Amer­i­can Stafford­shire Ter­ri­er and the Stafford­shire Bull Ter­ri­er.

This act does not spec­i­fy what would be con­sid­ered a "Pit Bull Ter­ri­er" in a court of law, hence the en­trance of con­fu­sion when a mag­is­trate has to ver­i­fy the breed.

I rec­om­mend two pieces of foun­da­tion or cor­ner­stone leg­is­la­tion be­fore a Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act is im­ple­ment­ed. T&T has an ex­ist­ing Dogs Act, 1918. This act should be up­dat­ed to 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 in our own­er­ship of live 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 or with work­ing dogs should pay a high­er fee etc.

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 and the dog's code and cor­re­spond­ing own­er de­tails are stored in a data­base. 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.

Ag­gres­sion is a ge­net­ic trait and is there­fore passed from par­ent to off­spring through 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.

The for­ma­tion of a breed­er's club should fall un­der the Dogs Act, 1918. A breed­er must be reg­is­tered with this club and must sub­mit to reg­u­lar in­spec­tions of their premis­es and dogs to en­sure that they 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 ed­u­cate them­selves about dogs (his­to­ry, phys­i­cal health, men­tal and emo­tion­al needs etc), the traits and re­quire­ments of the spe­cif­ic breed they de­sire.

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.

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.

I fear the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is bit­ing off more than it 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.

Kris­tel-Marie Ram­nath

best­pets­be­have@hot­mail.com