Aug. 8, 2001

Move to Ban Attack Dogs Has Lost Its Bite

By Eva Busse

FRANKFURT. Last summer, as headlines about raging attack dogs dominated the news media, concerned citizens flooded authorities across Germany with calls.

A wave of fear gripped the country after a small Hamburg boy was fatally mauled by a pit bull and a Staffordshire terrier. City and state parliaments were quickly bombarded with petitions calling for all attack dogs to be killed. More moderate voices urged that owners should be required to obtain the equivalent of a gun license for the animals.

Various interior ministers quickly outdid each other with promises to introduce strict controls on the dogs. German Interior Minister Otto Schily called such animals a "deadly danger" that should be eradicated from the streets, and by the end of the summer there were different regulations on attack dogs in each of Germany's 16 states -- some of them rushed through state parliaments.

In part, legislation differs because states have a different definition of what an attack dog is. In North Rhine-Westphalia, 42 types of dogs more than 40 centimeters (16 inches) in height and weighing more than 20 kilograms (44 pounds) can now only be kept by people with police-issued licenses. Dog owners must prove their specialist knowledge of and control over their pets, while the dogs themselves must be proven to be properly trained.

The southwestern state of Saarland considers only three breeds to be dangerous to the public. In Schleswig-Holstein, however, the figure is 11, and in Lower Saxony it is 14. Some federal states require attack dogs to undergo a personality test which could result in the animal being put down, while in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania the failure to muzzle a classified attack dog can result in a fine of DM10,000 ($4,500). In Saxony, the maximum penalty is DM50,000, and in Hamburg up to DM100,000.

The crackdown has had some impact: The number of pit bulls, American Staffordshire and Staffordshire bull terriers -- considered to be three of the most aggressive types of dogs -- consigned to pounds has doubled, while state funds have been increased to foot the extra cost of castrating and sterilizing dogs turned in by their owners.

But not all dog owners have gone along quietly. Many of them have formed lobby groups and set up Internet sites to complain about the "criminalization of dogs" and "race hatred" towards "peaceful, highly sensitive and trusting dogs," as a group calling itself SOS Attack Dogs put it.

And while the hysteria may have abated, occasional incidents involving attack dogs have continued.
In the spring, the German parliament passed legislation aimed at controlling "dangerous dogs," but since internal security falls under the jurisdiction of the federal states, the law can only forbid the introduction or breeding of certain dogs throughout Germany; the confusion surrounding the 16 sets of preventative measures must be resolved by the states themselves, but they have hesitated to push for uniform regulations. Critics say last year's sense of urgency has given way to foot-dragging.

Uniform regulations on dangerous dogs would also have to support legal rulings that have arisen out of last summer's state regulations. Concerns about the differing treatment of the various types of dogs have grown. Local administrative courts have tested the legality of decrees rushed through at the height of the public outcry, handing down contradictory rulings that have partly watered down or even invalidated the decrees.

Last September, for example, the Kassel Administrative Court ruled that the enforced castration of attack dogs in Hesse was illegal. And while courts in Berlin and Hamburg agreed with differing stipulations for dog owners according to the type of dog they have, Schleswig-Holstein's highest administrative court deemed parts of the state's dangerous dog regulations to be invalid.

In May, a court in the Lower Saxony city of Lüneburg agreed in part with an appeal against Lower Saxony's "breed lists." The ruling said a ban on keeping, breeding or promoting the spread of certain breeds was excessive, and that individual tests of a dog's character are more reliable in assessing danger than the categorization of entire breeds.

Animal rights organizations have long argued that the problem lies not with the dogs themselves, but their owners; not with the dogs' breed, but their upbringing. And the spokesman for the German Animal Welfare Society adds that any dog can be trained to attack. He said that banning certain breeds could encourage dog owners with "criminal energy" to use other breeds to produce ruthless weapons.

An organization called the German Association for Dogs' Character is prepared to fight the breed lists all the way to the Federal Constitutional Court in order to replace them with individual personality tests. It plans to file a suit in autumn claiming a breach of the constitution and is currently searching throughout Germany for "serious dog owners without a criminal record." The association hopes to compile a list of "friendly and obedient" attack dogs -- ideally those trained for therapeutic or rescue purposes -- to convince the judges that blanket rulings are wrong.

However, Thomas Veil, chairman of the attack dog working group at the state interior ministers' conference, says these dogs are dangerous by nature because their original inhibitions have been "bred out" of them. He says the inborn unpredictability of fighting dogs cannot be reined in, even by responsible owners.

In September, Thuringia will become the last federal state to introduce a breed list when it classes four breeds as dangerous. Owners will then have to pass a test derived from the one used for people applying for gun licenses.

Even so, Germany's legislators lack statistical evidence for both the alleged danger of attack dogs and the efficacy of the tougher legislation. Police logs only record the number of instances of actual bodily harm. Dog bites are not recorded separately.

In most states it is impossible to say how many people were bitten before or after the new regulations were brought in, but there are no national statistics. The most recent inquiry into dog attacks was carried out by the Federation of German Towns -- five years ago. Back then, pit bulls were far from the top of the list of aggressive breeds, with most reported bites made by mongrels or German shepherds, which none of the states now include on their list of attack dogs. And the statistics do not differentiate between fear-induced snaps following a careless human approach and serious attacks by fighting dogs which do not relax their grip even when their victim is lying motionless on the ground.

The courts are now considering whether legislators went too far in their reaction to the lethal attack in Hamburg by dogs which belonged to a man with 17 previous convictions. Hundreds of individual claims are still outstanding and it will be some time before verdicts are handed down and the state interior ministers agree on uniform attack dog regulations.

The calls they now receive are made less in fear than in confusion over the differing rules on muzzles and leashes.

Aug. 7, 2001
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