Kiwi dog bite hysteria:
keep your canine safe

NEW Zealand is at present rolling along in the wake of a spate of bad dog bites (see editorial) that have had people phoning their councils in many areas to deliver such complaints as: they are scared because their neighbour has a pit bull terrier and it just has to be waiting to get out one day and lie in wait for them as they take the rubbish out to the gate (or any similar imagined 'event')!

The sad thing about most of these silly calls is that their neighbour usually has been found to have a very well-behaved dog inside a well-fenced yard that has never been on the street without a leash and owner, and has never had a complaint laid against it, not even for barking. Just a few nasty cases in a group and the country falls around the playing fields, wringing its hands!

I know there are a few owners out there who are not responsible owners ... and I say with reservations that most of them would not be responsible parents or potential parents either ... but most owners with registered dogs do not need a second bidding to maintain good fences and put their dog on a leash when in public places.

I have two dogs of my own, both crossbreeds, and they do not go out without leashes for their own safety. I would not trust the actions of school kids walking past (delivering a sneaky poke with a stick as they pass or similar) or people inside their own yards that we would have to walk past perhaps encouraging the dog in to their yard; or the children of friends who decide to 'play with the dog' if I stop to talk to a parent.

For similar reasons I keep the back half of my section fenced for my dogs - where the meter reader or cookie seller or Avon lady or anyone else has no excuse to enter and can not, therefore, be the instigators of any mindless action that causes my dogs to retaliate. Dogs can still be in danger from children poking things through holes in fences, as the Christchurch Jack Russell terrier in the editorial found out, so any small or large holes should also be filled so that the dog is not affected by constant teasing. Dogs are not toys and can not be blamed for retaliating in kind when they are hurt or feel threatened. These are the single bites that many people suffer - the child who teased once too often, the adult who got between fighting dogs ... I have a permanent scar on my own shin from one of my present dogs, but the sole blame at the time rested upon myself. I learned never to try and turn a game into a training session mid-playing chase!

These are not dog attacks, they are dog bites, either accidental or retaliatory. Actual dog attacks are few and far between but nevertheless still happen too often. That is yet another reason why I am in favour of all dogs being on a leash in public.

A recent blemish in New Zealand lower middle class life is the emergence of dog fights in public parks. One group of young Auckland males recently was fined $750 each for organising fights - an improvement on the usual $200 but I do not think this is hefty enough. Dogs such as these, almost exclusively pit bull terriers, are unfortunately almost exclusively (except for a few show and breeding dogs) owned by young males between 18 and 25 years of age, who wear either a beanie or a golf cap turned the wrong way around! Not the sharpest of pencils (nor economic geniuses obviously), they pay up to $2000 for their dog, which they then proceed to damage in fights for no reward other than status as the owner of the 'top dog'. Perhaps through their dogs these youths hope to gain some kind of peer-group awe that they know they would never obtain through their own efforts.

A worrying part of these dog-owner partnerships is that such owners usually have no idea how to treat a dog, what it requires to be healthy, how to train it, and they would be far too naïve to think that it just may be a good idea to keep a fighting dog on a leash at all times in public.

The new bunch of stiff dog laws that the New Zealand Government is attempting to pass in a hurry while the wave of hysteria lasts, are largely unworkable and have not been thought through logically. Viewing a cash cow of potential voters in the making, MPs of most parties are playing it for all it is worth, but if allowed to carry the laws through to a logical conclusion (one of the laws states that all 'dangerous' breeds must be leashed AND muzzled in public) with no precise definition as to what a dangerous breed is (in its great wisdom, the Timaru City Council already wants to label the Jack Russell as a dangerous breed), or what a public place is, we could have every breed in New Zealand required to be muzzled in public by the end of the year.

Then there could be no dog shows, no expos, no hunters, no demonstrations, no school pet days, no service or police dogs - international statistics reveal the German Shepherd as the dog that has inflicted most damage on humans - in fact, no event at all that required unmuzzled dogs in public, and what is more public than a show day or a pet expo?

Instead of milking the situation to its full extent, MPs should be making sure people comply with the laws we already have, perhaps make leashes a requirement in public and maybe even licence the owners rather than the dogs. No child under 10 should ever be left alone with a dog - all dogs are capable of biting and all children are capable of teasing, hitting or annoying them. It could be said that a significant human failing is trusting our dogs - and our children - far too much and attributing both with intelligence beyond their capabilities.

Whatever the Government brings forth as new legislation I know all dog owners will hope with me that the lawmakers do take some time to think first, legislate logically, take away the law that lets each local body council dream up its own set of laws and disregard the Government's ones (one town could have laws forcing all dogs to be muzzled and leashed at all times while a neighbouring town may not even require leashing), and follow up the legislation by actually policing those laws.