Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Written evidence submitted by the Scottish Government
The Scottish Government welcomes the opportunity to provide information to the Committee’s Dog Control and Welfare Inquiry on the approach taken in Scotland in these areas.
Dog Control
The Scottish Parliament recently legislated to modernise the law on control of dogs in order to tackle the problem of irresponsible dog ownership. The Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 (“the 2010 Act”) received Royal Assent on 26 May 2010 and came into force on 26 February 2011. The 2010 Act was a members’ Bill taken through the Scottish Parliament by Christine Grahame MSP and was supported by all political parties within the Parliament.
The legislation is designed to highlight the responsibilities of dog owners by putting in place a regime that will identify “out of control” dogs at an early juncture and provide measures to change the behaviour of these dogs and their owners before they become dangerous.
This is done by widening the scope for local authorities and the courts to take action against persons in charge of a dog where the dog’s behaviour is deemed to be out of control. The 2010 Act created a Dog Control Notice (DCN) regime that permits (local authority appointed) authorised officers to issue DCNs to irresponsible owners of any dog that have been found to be out of control.
Under the 2010 Act, a dog is deemed to be “out of control” if:
It is not being kept under control effectively and consistently (by whatever means) by the proper person (generally the proper person is the owner of the dog) that is in charge of the dog), and
Its behaviour gives rise to alarm, or apprehensiveness on the part of any individual, and the individual’s alarm or apprehensiveness is, in all circumstances, reasonable—apprehensiveness may be as to (any or all) the individuals own safety, the safety of some other person, or the safety of an animal other than the dog in question.
The DCN requires owners to comply with the terms of the DCN to the satisfaction of the local authority and to bring and keep the dog under control. One of the mandatory conditions of a DCN is that owners of out of control dogs are required to microchip their dogs.
The DCN can also impose a number of other conditions on the dog owner including:
muzzling the dog whenever it is in a place to which the public have access;
keeping the dog on a lead whenever it is in a place to which the public have access;
If the dog is male, neutering it;
keeping the dog away from a place, or category of places, specified in the notice; and
the owner and their dog attending and completing a course of training in the control of dogs (the course may, but need not, be specified in the DCN).
The 2010 Act aims to tackle the issue of irresponsible dog ownership and does not seek to penalise responsible dog owners. The Scottish Parliament carefully considered the cost implications that would be placed on those who would be affected by the new DCN regime. If a dog owner is served with a DCN, inevitably there may some costs incurred by the person who has been served with the notice, for example, meeting the cost of attending dog training classes. Owning a dog is a great responsibility and owners will already be responsible for costs associated with the health and wellbeing of their dog. In light of all these considerations, the Scottish Parliament took the view that it is appropriate that dog owners should meet any costs incurred as a consequence of being served with a DCN under the 2010 Act.
The 2010 Act also amended section 3(1) of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. The widening of the section 3 offence ensures dog owners can be held criminally responsible for the dangerous actions of their dogs wherever these actions may have taken place. It is our view, and it was the view of the Scottish Parliament, that dog owners must take responsibility for the action of their dogs at all times in all places. The change to the 1991 Act should be seen in that context and this will help to encourage dog owners to take responsibility for their dogs.
The 2010 Act does not alter the present legislative position with regard to stray or abandoned dogs. Where a dog is unaccompanied in a public place the dog would be continue to be treated as a stray under section 3 of the Dogs Act 1906 or sections 149 or 150 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
The Scottish Government believes that the 2010 Act contains measures that will make our communities safer through effective preventative action being taken by against dogs which are out of control. While the new regime is still in its early stages of bedding in, the 2010 Act has been welcomed by local authorities and we believe that the legislation will have a positive impact in the months and years ahead. Early signs are encouraging with 92 DCNs issued and over 1,000 investigations undertaken by local authorities during the first 12 months of the Act coming into force. We will need to need to see how the 2010 Act operates for a period of time to see if improvements are made to the problem of irresponsible dog ownership.
In Scotland, we can also rely on other provisions to help to tackle the issue of dog control. Section 49(1) of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 makes it an offence for any person to allow any creature, including a dog, to cause injury or danger to any other person who is in a public place or to give that person reasonable cause for alarm or annoyance. Any person convicted for such an offence is liable to a fine not exceeding £500.
Scottish local authorities can also consider making byelaws under specific byelaw-making powers contained in individual Acts and under their general byelaw-making powers. If there is an area where dogs are often a repeated nuisance, the matter can be raised for consideration by the council, who can consider the use of powers to make appropriate bye-laws, for example, to keep dogs on leads in particular areas or to ban dogs from such places such as children’s playground.
Status Dogs
The focus of the 2010 Act concentrates of the “deed not breed” approach in tackling irresponsible dog ownership. While the 2010 Act can tackle issues relating to the ownership and control of status dogs, the Scottish Government is also aware of problems that can arise with status dogs that may be used for the purposes of illegal dog fighting. Dog fighting is an issue that the Scottish Government takes very seriously and the Scottish Parliament has strengthened the law on animal fighting through the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 (“the 2006 Act”) by making it an offence under this Act for any person to keep or train an animal for an animal fight or possess animal fighting equipment. The 2006 Act also makes it an offence to arrange, advertise or attend an animal fight, to bet or accept a bet on the outcome of an animal fight or to record or show a recording of an animal fight.
Animal fights are held in secret and it can be difficult to obtain sufficient evidence to ensure a conviction but the police, the Scottish SPCA and local authorities often work together and have had a number of successes in securing convictions. The 2006 Act gives the courts the power to imprison anyone convicted of any of these offences for up to 12 months and/or to impose a fine of up to £20,000 for each offence. The previous maximum penalty was six months imprisonment and/or a fine of up to £5,000 so the penalties have been considerably increased. These measures aim to ensure the welfare of the dog and to protect our communities from organised dog fighting.
The Scottish Government recognises that there is also a significant welfare issue arising from the irresponsible breeding, ill care (including inappropriate rearing and training) and abandonment of status dogs. There is robust legislation in place to deal with these activities. Section 29 of the 2006 Act makes it illegal to abandon an animal by taking it somewhere and leaving it. It is also an offence to leave an animal unattended and to fail to make adequate provision for its welfare. Section 19 of The Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 makes it an offence to cause unnecessary suffering, either by taking action which causes unnecessary suffering, or by failing to take steps to prevent unnecessary suffering. Suffering includes mental as well as physical and suffering. Breeding is dealt with in a separate section.
The Scottish Government believes that enforcement of existing legislation and policies by local authorities is a key tool in alleviating problems with status dogs.
Dog Breeding and Sale
In Scotland, the Licensing of Animal Dealers (Young Cats and Young Dogs (Scotland) Regulations 2009, (the Animal Dealer Regulations) was introduced under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006. This legislation to licence puppy and kitten dealers is designed to regulate the trade in young cats and dogs, particularly those who transport animals from Ireland (both North and South) to Scotland. This effectively banned the trade in puppies being transported to Scotland from Ireland for sale. These regulations set a minimum age at which these animals can be sold (eight weeks) and require the animals to be examined by a vet when the dealer buys them, to remain with the dealer for a period of 10 days (to enable any latent disease to show) before being sold and for the dealer to provide for animals being kept at all times in suitable accommodation and to be supplied with suitable food, drink and bedding material, adequately exercised and visited at suitable intervals. Anyone who holds a licence under the Breeding of Dogs Act 1973 or the Pet Animals Act 1951, however, is exempted from this requirement. This legislation also does not apply to any person who sells no more than two young cats or two young dogs or one of each type of animal in any 12 month period.
In Scotland the commercial breeding of dogs is regulated by the Breeding of Dogs Act 1973, as amended by the Breeding of Dogs Act 1991 and the Breeding and Sale of Dogs (Welfare) Act 1999. Under these Acts, no person is permitted to keep a breeding establishment for dogs except under licence. Licences for breeding establishments are issued by local authorities following an inspection by a veterinary surgeon. Any person breeding more than three litters of puppies in a year without a licence has committed an offence. The Scottish Government plans to review this legislation. Unfortunately, due to other higher priority work in relation to rural affairs matters it is difficult to give a timetable for this work at this time. Ensuring that the existing legislation is being enforced effectively in the meantime is important.
The Scottish Government is also aware that the Kennel Club actively discourages the exaggeration of features in any breed and that in some cases the breed standards have been amended to ensure the breeding of healthy, well conformed dogs. We are aware that dog show judges are also educated to judge to those standards, ensuring that dogs with obvious problems that could affect their quality of life do not win, and that the rewards go to fit, healthy dogs. In addition to these policies, veterinary checks of the Best of Breed (BoB) winners in each of the 15 high profile breeds were introduced at Crufts this year by the Kennel Club.
Microchipping
The Scottish Government agrees that microchipping is an effective method of identifying animals and recognises the benefits in helping to reunite dogs with their owners when dogs have been lost or stolen. This is reflected in Section 5.12 of the “Code of Practice for the Welfare of Dogs”, published in March 2010, which recommends microchipping. In addition, in Scotland, the owners of out of control dogs are already required to microchip their dogs by the issue of a DCN under the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010. We believe this is a proportionate approach so that those dogs that have proven to be out of control in the past and are the subject of a DCN are able to be easily identified and monitored in the future. The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 also requires the owners of dog breeds bred specifically for fighting to obtain a certificate that permits them to retain such dogs, but only if certain conditions are met such as the dog being neutered or spayed and permanently identified with a tattoo or microchip.
However, the Scottish Government considers that the decision to microchip should in general be a voluntary one. Although many responsible owners in Scotland are already microchipping on a voluntary basis, introducing a widespread requirement for compulsory microchipping could be costly for owners, since any registration system and database would have to be self-sustaining financially. One of the main reasons that dog licences were abolished in the 1980’s was that the cost of the scheme was greater than the revenue raised. The potential cost of administering and enforcing any such scheme would require people to pay a substantial amount of money; this is likely to be disproportionate and unfair on people with lower incomes. Furthermore, irresponsible owners would be unlikely to comply with a compulsory requirement and effective enforcement would be difficult and resource intensive at a time when local authority resources are already limited.
At present the Scottish Government has no evidence to show that making microchipping compulsory for all dogs would effectively tackle welfare issues such as puppy farming or dog control issues such as dog attacks effectively and we are therefore not considering introducing this measure at present. However, we will be monitoring developments in other parts of the UK in relation to microchipping with interest.
Education
The Scottish Government believes that education is a key factor in encouraging responsible dog ownership and improving dog welfare. To this end we published a Code of Practice for the welfare of dogs in 2010 that outlines how to care for dogs. We are aware that various charities provide advice to dog owners in Scotland, including the Dogs Trust and the Scottish SSPCA. We are also aware that the SSPCA play a significant educational role on animal welfare in Scotland through their ‘prevention through education’ scheme. This scheme gives schools in Scotland free access to workshops and educational packs that fit into Scotland’s curriculum for excellence and includes a workshop on responsible pet ownership. The Advisory Council on the Welfare issues of dog breeding also provides advice on ‘how to buy a puppy’ through an interactive set of questions.
I hope that this information is helpful to the Committee. Should the Committee require further information on any specific issue, please feel to ask me for more detail.
August 2012