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Fair Dog Laws
Fair dog laws are vital and necessary. However, those we elect or who are appointed into government are more often than not poorly versed in dogs and what creates dangerous ones. When concerns and problems arise, they look for the answer that will LOOK GOOD AT ELECTION TIME and what they ASSUME will be the easy way out: ban the dangerous breed.
Think of BSL as a doctor in an emergency room working on a stabbing victim. The victim is bleeding so the doctor immediately grabs the suture kit and sews the wounds up. WAIT! The patient has internal injuries, there are issues that the doctor is not considering. The patient ends up dying anyhow. Why? Well only the surface was looked at. The serious cause beneath the few punctures on the skin were ignored. The problem was not fixed - the doctor just took the easy way out. Would we accept this behavior from a real doctor? Of course not. So why should we accept it when politicians - those we chose to serve us - take the same “let’s make it look good” attitude. But we do.
Why?
Simple, sadly too many people in the general public have no idea what makes a dangerous dog. They fall for the same hype, myths and even lies that the politicians do. The general public does not want to accept that even their beloved pet could be a potential fatality. Well it could. Remember, all dogs can and will bite if the need is felt. Any dog can be pushed to the limits of his tolerance. Bite size is relative to the size of the dog and the victim. A small dog biting an adult man will do far less damage than the same bite to a newborn baby. Any dog can be taught aggression.
In 2003, I received over half a dozen - closer to a dozen by now - calls from clients of a local training program. All the dogs had the same thing in common: various levels of possession aggression. I started talking to the owners about how the other trainer had them managing the NORMAL desire for dogs NOT to share. BINGO! The trainer was instructing the owners to deal with normal canine behavior in a manner that further threatened the dogs and actually increased the level and severity of the possession issues. This trainer was turning out dogs that had a far greater risk of mauling a person! The owners had no clue that this information was wrong and kept up with the lessons.
Even well meaning owners can accidentally create a very dangerous situation. Note, not ONE of these dogs being taught to be highly possessive by a poor trainer were pit bulls or Rottweilers or any other breed even mentioned in a BSL. They were all breeds assumed to be perfectly safe family pets.
Then there are those who INTENTIONALLY gets dog in order to make status symbols out of them, weapons, etc. Do you think they will honestly comply with the laws? No. They are not already. They will just move deeper underground and continue along with what they are doing. And if a community manages to round up and destroy all the dogs of a breed in the region, will that work? No. Another breed will take its place.
Let’s take a look at two dog laws.
The first is an example of one that targets certain dogs based only on breed. The second is a dangerous dog law that covers all dogs and has provisions that look into the root cause of the bite.
Breed Specific Law
All-encompassing Dangerous Dog Law.
After reading them both, think: what law makes more sense in the long term? What law targets the TRUE dangerous element?
The BSL looks good on the surface but will fail time and time again. Even the fair law has to be enforced but it makes sure all dogs are treated equally and all owners are held accountable.
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