Western Europe in the 21st Century - What price
I have received a copy of a report by Cathie Detmar on the real meaning and threat of the sort of legislation introduced in Germany last year. Unannounced, a local veterinary surgeon arrived at their house with the right of entry to see if they had an illegal Bull Terrier on the premises. As Cathie said in a subsequent e-mail, "they can come (into our house) when they want because of the breed of dog we have, but if we were drug pushers, pornographers or other criminal type, they need a court order to come in....".
Is this protecting the public or merely pandering to it?
Is this the work that veterinary surgeons should be undertaking?
David Levy
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Yesterday, Rudi and I joined the ranks of many bull-breed owners, those who some top government officials have referred to 'Rechtsradikal' or Neo-Nazi's and people no different than thugs. (These from two of the top politicians in Germany)
There was a knock on the door and it was the state veterinarian, who had the order from the county government to come and inspect the house and dogs. This is usually done when there is suspicion, concern, possible evidence of lying to the government when we registered the dogs in 2000, etc.
He first scanned all of the dogs in the house with a scanner and verified their microchip number to the one their pedigrees and cross-checked with those dogs we had to register in 2000. He wanted to see all the rooms in the house and where the dogs slept, inspected the paperwork from our last litter, then perused our kennel club book on the last several litters we bred (a German Kennel Club rule states this book must be kept up to date on every litter). He took the names and addresses of the owners of our last litter (even those in other countries).
Back in 2000, we had registered 2 or 3 dogs with the government. who are no longer here. One we lost at 12 to a stroke and had to be put to sleep, one who went to Sweden and another (Pretty Boy Floyd) who went to America. He wanted proof the last two were really in other countries...so we had to produce puppy contracts with names and addresses.
He wanted to know how often the dogs get exercised. We told him besides being loose in the house and backyard, they go daily to the field by our house to walk/run off-leash. Just to make sure they are active and sociable (even though he had copies of their temperament test) he asked how they were together. So we let them all out into the back yard to see for himself. I think he was a little impressed to see 6 bullies playing together.
After 1 1/2 hours he finally left...everything was in order and he would write a report to the ministry that the dogs are fine, the paperwork is in order, everything here is as we had reported to the government. He then started to laugh and said when he first knocked on the door and I answered, he was a little shocked. He told Rudi he expected me to be black. We both looked at him like he was nuts and he showed us our file, where the police have to report that you are not a criminal. The file comes from Berlin and beneath my name and place of
birth (which says USA), he showed me what nationality they put: Cameroon!! I dragged out my passport and showed him that was definitely. not the case.
I must admit, when he first came to the door, I was very nervous. The federal law states, if this should happen, the veterinarian has full authority to inspect the house, dogs and all paperwork connected to the dogs. He has the authority to call the police for help, if needed. If he finds anything that is not 'kosher'...he has the right to remove the dogs. Even though I know we would not have a problem..it was still a bit unsettling to have him in the house. Glad it is over and will be damn-glad when our trial is underway and over, so this BSL hysteria can be put behind us.
Cathie