Forums Forums Local News VOTE Does dangerous dog legislation need to change

VOTE: Do the laws on dangerous dogs need to change after Liverpool boy was killed?

LAWS on dangerous dogs are being strongly debated after a four-year-old boy was mauled to death by an illegal pitbull terrier.

John Paul Massey's died from head and neck injuries after his uncle's dog attacked him on Monday.


The tragedy has led people to reconsider the current dangerous dog legislation and call for changes.

They include all dogs to be microchipped so owners can be traced and harsher punishments for owners who deliberately set their dogs on people or pets.

A dangerous dog assessment centre in the North West, preferably Merseyside, was also called for so alleged dangerous dogs could be quickly determined by a vet.

Many people commented on the story. Poshy wrote: "Deed not breed. Why was this dog so aggressive and why was it allowed near children?

"Prosecute the owners who, if licences were brought in, would never ever be given another."

Presacanairo said: "Yet again the witch hunt begins on bull breeds responsible owners or not. The laws do need to change but the government rushed through the last dangerous dogs act and a lot of people lost their family pets.

"A license would be a good start..for the police to be able confiscate unlicensed dogs...helping people like myself who have a true passion for real bull breed."


THE DAILY POST

Does dangerous dog legislation need to change? single choice
	NO
	YES: dogs just need to be microchipped
	YES: guilty owners need harsher punishments
	YES: we need a dangerous dog assessment centre
	YES: we need all of the above changes
Votes accepted starting: 4th Dec 2009 3:46pm You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

the police have'nt got a clue what a pitt type dog looks like, my son had a pitt x staffie for 13 years, sweet beautiful dog too he was never asked by the police for proof of breed, my grandson aged 4 had an
english bull terrier x staffie for 3 years,the dog was seized and pts ,my son inlaw had proof of parentage from the breeders, but police did'nt believe him.
if you look in the dog pound you can see staff x dogs in there, some of them are huge and easily adoptable by idiots to train up to be aggressive, and now the rspca are giving staffies away because there are so many of them in rescues. the law does need to change on Dangerous owners because without them there would'nt be Dangerous dogs. and they need to come up with something better than BSL because since the little Girl was killed in 2007 dog attacks have continued to rise.
i hope the owner of that dog pays a very high price for what he did to his nephew, because he might as well theft that child with a loaded gun in his hand.

It is very dangerous to believe there are only dangerous owners and no dangerous breeds, It is true that anyone who knows what their doing can easily turn any dog in to a potential killer and a savage brute, On saying that, it is not always the fault of the owner if a dog turns out to be aggressive. Some breeds have that aggression bred in to them, that's what they where designed to be and as nature works it will take hundreds of years to breed it out of them. Most breeds will bite once or twice ( a snap ) and leave it at that and have to be really pushed to go in to a killer mode, but there are also some breeds that only know one thing and one thing only and that is to keep on attacking until their pray is finished. This is why some breeds are considered dangerous and has nothing to do with their rearing. After all this is a reason we are not allowed to keep the big wild cats as domestic pets, how many times have zoo keepers and safari park owners been attacked and killed by cats they have known from birth and showed them nothing but kindness, the answer is, its the nature of the beast and its bred in to them to be that way. Its a shame some breeds have to be taken out of our society, but better that than to have continuous loss of human life.

neither the dog or the owners were born 'bad'.
but, the owners made the choice to buy a dog they felt would give them the right 'look'. they deliberately went for a breed that is widely recognised as a dog able to fight to the death.
the dog still has no say in this.
the owner. given the evidence on his face book account.encouraged his dog to behave in an anti-social manner.
the dog, being a dog. went along with this as is given to his nature to obey his master.
absolute tragedy occurs.
the dog was the weapon. the dog was the one who took the life of an innocent child.
what are we left with? a grieving family and a nation baying for the destruction of a 'type' of dog they perceive to be evil.

my sympathies of course lie with the dead child. but i cannot feel anything but disgust at the actions of his family. from the day that dog entered their lives, they signed the death warrant of that little boy.
the saddest thing is that when dog fighting was socially acceptable, these dogs were known for their loyalty and devotion to their owners. we have a new breed of human that actively encourages their dogs to show and display aggression to other humans.
the dog was brought up to be a weapon. this backfired in the most tragic way possible.

No animal is necessarily born bad but they are born with instinct and the instinct of some animals is to be aggressive. The instinct of some breeds of dog are to be aggressive. Most breeds of dogs can show aggression, that goes really without saying. The danger is how far a particular breed of dog can take that aggression and what is normally the outcome of that aggression. It is wrong and foolhardy to assume that only aggressive and dangerous breeds can be owned by bad people, even what we deem as good owners are at times in ownership of bad and aggressive dogs, through no fault of the owner. What is the answer then, when a good person ends up with a bad and aggressive dog. Do we say, well that's ok, it came from a good home and just prosecute what we think as scaly owners.

IMVHO the problem start with people buying pets as fashion accessories. Then, because they have no idea as to how to care for them the pets get bored and behave in a way that it likely to gain them attention - that is badly. The problem increases when a pet with unpleasant traits is bought by an ignorant owner and so the pattern emerges.
Unfortunalty, the same can be said for some of the delightful characters around that have babies as a fashion accessory, these babies then grow up into the human equivalent of a 'pit bull type'
Sound familiar?????