The Kennel Club has learnt
of Merseyside Constabulary’s intention to invoke its threatened
seven-day dangerous dogs ‘amnesty’ – or in reality
a seven-day dog cull.
The Kennel Club is appalled
by Merseyside’s decision and somewhat bewildered that it has
not taken on board any advice that it asked for from the Kennel
Club as to how to protect the
public against dangerous dogs.
Said Caroline Kisko,
Kennel Club Secretary: “We are dismayed that Merseyside
Constabulary has ignored our sensible advice which they asked for.
We proposed a
workable alternative – to re-open the Index of Exempted Dogs
for 3 months to owner led
application. They have gone ahead without listening and unfortunately
their amnesty will
leave the public unprotected while only responsible owners and their
dogs will suffer”.
The so called ‘amnesty’
is a poorly thought out and ineffective response to a tragic situation,
that will lead to the death of many well loved family pets and cause
a great deal of distress to
dog owners.
The
obvious flaws to the amnesty being introduced by Merseyside are
that:
Some responsible
owners will bring dogs forward to comply with the amnesty –
their
well behaved dogs would then be destroyed based on how they look.
Other responsible
owners will hide their dogs because they cannot bear to part with
them. This will drive responsible owners underground and as a result
the welfare of
the dogs will suffer i.e. through less exercise, not visiting vets
etc.
Meanwhile those
irresponsible enough to be involved in dog fighting or training
dogs
to be aggressive are not the sort of people that will come forward
as they are not law
abiding. The Kennel Club deplores the training of dogs for fighting
and agrees that pit
bull type dogs trained for fighting would not be eligible to be
placed on the Index and
should be humanely destroyed.
Meanwhile
the obvious benefits to the alternative proposed by the Kennel Club
are that:
Re-opening the Index for three months would not allow for any more
pit bull type dogs
to be bred but would allow for more owners of pit bull type dogs
to be made aware of
the proposal and take responsible action.
Re-opening the
Index would also help address the problem of limited Police
resources i.e. in terms of keeping dogs and seizing dogs once the
amnesty is over.
Compliance with
the Kennel Club proposal would be far easier and more effective
-
rather than people hiding their dogs, more would register their
dogs on the Index.
As required by the Index, these dogs would have to be on a lead
and muzzled in public,
permanently identified and neutered - thereby ensuring the safety
of all from any
possibility of dog bites.
