I don’t like dogs. I don’t like their lolling tongues and waggy tails; their drooling mouths and pointed teeth. To me, the sound of a barking dog is like hearing a hundred nails scraped down a chalkboard.
I don’t like dog owners much, either. Especially the contemptuous sort who insist, “he’s only playing”, when their 100-pound German Shepherd leaps up at a scared stranger.
Like fond parents who think their children look cute with food-smeared faces, dog-lovers are invariably self-delusional when it comes to their wretched pets.
But there’s a point when this irritating whimsy, this peculiarly English indulgence towards dogs, slips into the dysfunctional, even the dangerous. And it’s a point we’ve reached.
Since 2007, dogs have killed eight people, six of them children. It costs the NHS £3 million every year to treat attack injuries. That’s the cost of more than 100 nurses. Scores of pets and farm animals are savaged and killed each month by out-of-control canines.
There are around 8 million dogs in the UK, and twenty-three per cent of households own at least one. That’s a pretty powerful lobby, even before we factor in the British equivalent of America’s National Rifle Association, the Kennel Club. To most people, they’re the cuddly people who run the annual Crufts dog show. But they’re also the reason why successive governments have failed to introduce dog-control laws that might actually work.
The usual argument from the doggy lobby is that any laws that apply wholesale to all dogs and owners would be too prescriptive; inherently unfair to responsible owners and well-trained dogs. But that’s a worn-out whine from the self-interested. After all, the same could be argued about Britain’s gun laws; or rules that forbid drinking alcohol in parks; or teenagers driving at night. Decent dog-owners surely understand that sometimes you do need a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Public spaces – parks, streets, and playgrounds – are for people, not dogs. Green spaces have been hijacked by dog-owners who think their pet’s daily run is more important than a child’s right to play safely. Or mine not to step in something nasty.
From 2016, all dogs will have to be micro-chipped, and new laws mean owners can be prosecuted if their pet attacks someone on private property. But this isn’t enough. Compulsory licensing operates in Northern Ireland and should be introduced across Britain. Dog Control Notices give Scottish local authorities power to tackle illegal breeding and other dog-related crime. Adopting them throughout the UK would help slash attacks and make life pleasanter for millions of city-dwellers.
But if we’re going to prevent the 200,000 plus dog attacks that happen in England alone each year, we need laws that force all owners to keep their dogs on leads at all times, in all public places. Only in local-authority designated exercise areas, or on private land, should dogs be allowed to roam freely. And owners who don’t comply should be heavily fined and have their pet confiscated if they refuse to pay up.
Too prescriptive? An infringement of those dodgy doggy rights? I don’t care. We’ve run out of choices.
And another thing. I don’t buy all this stuff about the unquestioning love, faith and trust you get from a dog. I’m with Aldous Huxley, who said: “To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.”
This first appeared on 31st May 2013 at http://www.speakerschair.com
Kath Raymond Hinton 
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