Ennvironment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Written evidence submitted by Stuart Mann

Having studied the draft amendments to the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act I, as a representative of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier Welfare organisation would like to make the following observations and objections.

1.We support the “blame the deed and not the breed” campaign. But at the same time we are fully aware that the general public wish to see a reduction and more protection from the incidence of bad deeds involving dogs due to irresponsible ownership.

2.With this in mind we are in favour of many of the ideas put forward in the paper:

We accept the need to extend the act to cover private property, but are concerned that there may be scope for abuse of the legislation or misjudgement during any investigation or trial and that clear guidance needs to be provided.

We accept the need to treat assistance dogs as exceptional cases.

With respect to licensing of puppy breeding, we accept that the proposals go some way to addressing the issues but are concerned that this does not capture the “back street breeding issues”. In this situation dogs are often treated with little respect and seen as no more that a monetary solution to a desire for some other material possession eg a home improvement or holiday. This is exacerbated by the belief that there is a ready market for a particular type of dog but often leads to the surplus being offered to anyone that will take them without properly assessing the ability to provide a suitable home or, alternatively, rescue organisations. With this in mind we would support an extension to the proposals to require all breeders to apply for a permit for every litter of dogs stating the names of father and mother of any puppies. While this may be of concern to genuine breeders, we would expect that this may deter back street operations with a disingenuous purpose.

We support any moves to curb online sales of puppies. However we feel that this may be difficult to achieve with the technology that is now available enabling web sites to be easily and cheaply constructed and the pervasiveness of search engines like Google.

We support education of the public and especially children into behaving and interacting correctly with dogs.

3.With respect to Breed Specific Legislation, we object to any changes to the existing legislation that would enable the Secretary of State to add dog types as and when considered necessary and would encourage and support repeal of this specific clause on the following grounds:

88% of respondents state that Breed Specific Legislation is ineffectual.

It penalises responsible owners.

It creates social stigma towards specific types of dog even if these are well behaved and socialised.

Adding types does nothing to stop breeding, especially crosses.

Cost of enforcement and kennelling of seized dogs places unfair burden on the tax payer.

Considerable evidence from academic studies and foreign government peers to disprove the efficacy of Breed Specific Legislation.

Repeal of Breed Specific Legislation by The Netherlands and Italy.

4.With respect to the dangerous dogs legislation in general, we would recommend the following.

Education of the general public, especially children, would be more effective. The majority of the general public, especially dog owners would have little knowledge of the existing legislation towards dog ownership. Children can often unwittingly provide provocation to dogs that can initiate uncharacteristic aggressive behaviour. We support education of children using the program initiated by Battersea Dogs and Cats home.

The existing legislation is not clearly represented to the general public. Any legislation towards dogs need to be written in terms that are easily understandable and awareness needs to be raised among the general public

5.We support microchipping of all dogs but are concerned that the requirement to have dogs microchipped will be flaunted in the same way as Breed Specific Legislation. We have additional concerns about enforcement:

Local councils will set up private enforcement agencies to check that dogs are microchipped.

Private enforcement agencies will use any opportunity to issue penalty notices as a method of revenue.

Private enforcement agencies act as vigilante organisations and persecute the genuine law observing members of public.

Microchips can frequently migrate throughout the body of a dog even though it has been inserted by a trained individual. This could lead to a false identification of an un-chipped dog leading to a penalty notice being issued.

Incorrect registration of dog breed or type.

April 2013