Ennvironment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Written evidence submitted by Denise Greenfield

I have read the amendment from Defra and it doesn’t appear that it will do anything to prevent dog attacks; they have just thought about what punishment people could get after an attack by a dog. It’s all about destroying dogs and nothing about punishing owners which we all know are the problem. I would have liked to see Defra take this opportunity to encourage responsible ownership of dogs.

This new amendment will not stop dog attacks and will allow the killing of thousands of innocent family pets. All dog attacks should be looked at individually and not blamed on certain breeds. We need a deed-not-breed way to do things. We also need a complete change to the Dangerous Dogs Act, which was brought in with haste, a bit like this one, after the horse had bolted. This Act hasn’t worked; it has taken thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money for needless kennelling of our pets who are neither dangerous nor a threat. It has cost us our family members, because that is what they are to us. It has cost lives—there have been suicides when the dogs have been seized—and it is costing stray dogs that you deem type there life’s, often with the people that are having to put to sleep crying as they do it because that dog would have made a faithful family pet.

Please take time to rethink the new laws and to abolish this old law of 1991. Let this be the year you start to listen and stop seizing our family and start thinking about the deed, about the action, not our breeds. Adding more to the Act is just ridiculous—any dog can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Make the owners not the dogs accountable. We have to have a licence to drive, tax and insurance, anyone can own a dog. Please think about our dogs. Thank you, bull breed owner all my life.

April 2013