Dog attacks "skyrocketing", now "an unrecognised public health crisis"

[notaclue]

I am not surprised. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/dog-attacks-fatal-dangerous-numbers-b2044830.html Such is the nature of many dogs and many dog owners.

It is time that we moved from a system of banning a handful of certain breeds to a system of only allowing certain breeds of dogs. The default position should be all dogs are banned until proven extremely safe.

"That was 2002. Some 3,395 people were hospitalised by such incidents that year. By 2018 – the last period for which we have reliable data – that figure had skyrocketed to 8,389."

“There can be this tendency to brush off [dog bites] as almost cartoon-ish,” says Dr Carri Westgarth, a lecturer in Human-Animal Interaction at University of Liverpool and author of The Happy Dog Owner. “But the physical and mental effects can be absolutely catastrophic for those involved. The fact that almost 9,000 people are being admitted to hospital every year means we absolutely need to be calling this what it is, which is an unrecognised public health crisis.”

 

[Woodface]

Ban dogs over a certain size or pull their teeth out?

 

[Darren L]

Surely it's the dog owners the issue is with rather than the dogs themselves?

 

[Seeker_UK]

Define "safe". Then let's talk about responsible ownership before daft notions of some breeds being somehow naturally safer than others.

AIUI, Labrador retrievers are respsonsible for more dog bite attacks than any other breed in the UK. Ban them?

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

I am not surprised. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/dog-attacks-fatal-dangerous-numbers-b2044830.html Such is the nature of many dogs and many dog owners.

It is time that we moved from a system of banning a handful of certain breeds to a system of only allowing certain breeds of dogs. The default position should be all dogs are banned until proven extremely safe.

'Such is the nature of many dogs and many dog owners'

'It is time we moved from a system of banning a handful of certain breeds to a system of only allowing certain breeds of dogs'.

The OP's prejudices are clear. I'm out on this one, anything that calls for banning of something the person has an antipathy for isn't a thread that is likely to produce a balance of measured and considered argument. Calls for bans are, in the main, a bit of a tell.

 

[gintonic]

The default position should be all dogs are banned until proven extremely safe.

isnt that the truth. Ban all owners as well, curfew them in their homes. Put all dogs on treadmills to help generate electricity

 

[notaclue]

'Such is the nature of many dogs and many dog owners'

'It is time we moved from a system of banning a handful of certain breeds to a system of only allowing certain breeds of dogs'.

The OP's prejudices are clear. I'm out on this one, anything that calls for banning of something the person has an antipathy for isn't a thread that is likely to produce a balance of measured and considered argument. Calls for bans are, in the main, a bit of a tell.

You, sir, should be banned. Forthwith.

isnt that the truth. Ban all owners as well, curfew them in their homes. Put all dogs on treadmills to help generate electricity

First sensible post. I agree.

 

[sean99]

I feel like the only way to tackle this is is to make it a liability issue for the owners. Mandatory dog insurance and licensing and let the underwriters price the scrote dog owners out of the market. Give police powers to stop and ask for proof of insurance and dog is confiscated if you can't produce it (and owner hit with escalating fines and eventually prison time for repeat offences).

 

[Cheese]

The OP's prejudices are clear. I'm out on this one, anything that calls for banning of something the person has an antipathy for isn't a thread that is likely to produce a balance of measured and considered argument.

Quite, but the prejudices are on both sides.

Fact is that some dogs, for all sorts of reasons (human or not), should be kept away from people. I don't have the solution, but leaving things as they are is not the way to go.

I feel like the only way to tackle this is is to make it a liability issue for the owners.

Sadly some of those owners keep *lots* of dogs and don't have them under control. It all too often turns out that they don't have their finances under control either, as a result there's nothing to expect anyway.

 

[gintonic]

active tracking is the answer - all dogs will be tracked by a drone every dog, in the home and outside- should anything untoward happen the drone will deploy a blunderbuss to blow the dogs head off.

 

[flatpopely]

Define "safe". Then let's talk about responsible ownership before daft notions of some breeds being somehow naturally safer than others.

AIUI, Labrador retrievers are respsonsible for more dog bite attacks than any other breed in the UK. Ban them?

Where are the stats about Labs?

 

[Brown Bottle]

I love dogs, more than I love most people. There are certain breeds of dogs that people don't need to own and there are certain people who shouldn't be allowed to keep dogs. If you did a Venn Diagram it would pretty much overlap. I regularly see people who have dogs they can't control or couldn't control if things went wrong. Much more education is needed for owners and more training for dogs, perhaps both should be mandatory.

Labs are top of the league because of sheer numbers owned, I can't imagine they're responsible for any fatalities.

Cheers BB

 

[Tony L]

I’d like to see more in-depth figures, e.g. what percentage of “violent” dogs were either taught to be aggressive by their owners (anything from fox hunting, badger baiting, dog-fighting, security etc, through to some macho thug prick trying to look hard with a doberman or pit bull), how many had been mistreated or otherwise suffered at the hands of their owners or their children etc etc. My instinct is that dogs are far less violent than humans. I’d bet more people, adults or children, are killed or injured by humans as a scaled percentage than via dogs. I lived right in a busy city centre, I know exactly how violent humans are!

 

[monkfish]

Shaun Ryder has the answer.

https://www.nme.com/news/music/shaun-ryder-was-once-sacked-as-a-postman-for-biting-a-dog-2546807

 

[Cheese]

Much more education is needed for owners and more training for dogs, perhaps both should be mandatory.

Such trainings were made mandatory in Switzerland after a particularly shocking three-dog (lethal) attack on a little boy in 2005. But this law has been abolished in 2017 due to its apparent ineffectiveness, the figures having since gone up rather than down.

 

[gordon]

I feel like the only way to tackle this is is to make it a liability issue for the owners. Mandatory dog insurance and licensing and let the underwriters price the scrote dog owners out of the market. Give police powers to stop and ask for proof of insurance and dog is confiscated if you can't produce it (and owner hit with escalating fines and eventually prison time for repeat offences).

In the US, it is a liability issue for the owner, though there are no insurance requirements, but most home owners' insurance covers it. The payout is typically 5-6 times medical expenses. I was attacked by my neighbor's dog to the tune of 26 stitches. The medical bill totaled $4k, and my neighbor's home owners insurance payed me $25k. I felt sorry for my neighbors as they had just moved here, and just rescued the dog from the animal shelter, but clearly couldn't control it. The animal shelter should've never allow it to be adopted. My neighbor euthanized the dog the night of the attack.

 

[Brown Bottle]

Such trainings were made mandatory in Switzerland after a particularly shocking three-dog (lethal) attack on a little boy in 2005. But this law has been abolished in 2017 due to its apparent ineffectiveness, the figures having since gone up rather than down.

Yes, unfortunately I guess bad people ignore it and nobody policies it. Same reason dog licenses were abolished here.

Cheers BB

 

[Cheese]

I’d like to see more in-depth figures, e.g. what percentage of “violent” dogs were either taught to be aggressive by their owners (anything from fox hunting, badger baiting, dog-fighting, security etc, through to some macho thug prick trying to look hard with a doberman or pit bull), how many had been mistreated or otherwise suffered at the hands of their owners or their children etc etc. My instinct is that dogs are far less violent than humans. I’d bet more people, adults or children, are killed or injured by humans as a scaled percentage than via dogs. I lived right in a busy city centre, I know exactly how violent humans are!

Most probably, yes, but we shouldn't glorify animals either for any in-born anti-violence they are supposed to have, that's hippie thinking. Not an animal specialist here, but my girlfriend has grown up with horses and still loves them, yet she told me of some particularly nasty ones she got to know along the way, with little 'human' explanation. I guess it's quite like in families when one guy sings with the Salvation Army while his brother is in prison.

 

[Spraggons Den]

When I was a kid, it was generally accepted that the scariest dog was the Alsatian but we had dogs at home and I wasn’t too worried by them. In my twenties I became aware of the Rotweiller through a work colleague and
I must admit to being a little apprehensive when I visited him as they are such a powerful breed. The Pit Bull and Japanese things are pretty common now often with unsuitable owners. Our Cavapoo has been attacked twice over the last eighteen months by such dogs resulting in £250 vet bills both times. She was on the lead the hell dogs weren’t but TBH she was lucky to come away with her life and my wife broke her wrist badly protecting her. We are very selective where we walk the Cavapoo now.

 

[Brown Bottle]

In the US, it is a liability issue for the owner, though there are no insurance requirements, but most home owners' insurance covers it. The payout is typically 5-6 times medical expenses. I was attacked by my neighbor's dog to the tune of 26 stitches. The medical bill totaled $4k, and my neighbor's home owners insurance payed me $25k. I felt sorry for my neighbors as they had just moved here, and just rescued the dog from the animal shelter, but clearly couldn't control it. The animal shelter should've never allow it to be adopted. My neighbor euthanized the dog the night of the attack.

Wow, how awful for everyone involved, but especially you.

Cheers BB