Letter to The Times Newspaper:

Sir,

I write as a veterinary surgeon, certified clinical animal behaviourist, expert witness on the assessment of dogs and their behaviour and the co-author of the Blue Dog Parent Guide, an interdisciplinary and interactive dog bite prevention programme for three to six year-olds (www.thebluedog.org).  Regardless of the human need for retribution and punishment, we will be no further forward in the analysis and prevention of dog attacks, fatal or otherwise, if the prime suspect and 'evidence-in-chief' is immediately destroyed.  If a certain make of car or aeroplane were suspected of 'misbehaving', then no nut, bolt or black box would be left unturned until the fault, capable of taking human life, was found.  It would certainly not be immediately crushed thus destroying any potentially life-saving information. 

Although very few people would want to continue to live with a dog who has mauled or killed a child, these dogs, rare as they are, are no more dangerous after the incident than before - any more than we would be more at risk from a motorway pile-up after the event.  Having been faced with the enormity of what cars can do, however, might make us choose and drive cars more carefully.  But not so for our understanding, handling and management of the domestic dog, whose role in human society is so taken for granted that, irrespective of how it is created or driven, is expected to tolerate without retaliation anything that our society throws at it. 

An immediate consequence of any dog attack, let alone a fatal one, should be that a standardised forensic behavioural assessment is carried out of a live dog within a maximum of 72 hours of the incident.  This protocol should be publicly agreed and be accepted by the courts as 'joint agreed evidence' to avoid, as is presently the case, any findings of an assessment being conveniently disallowed by either prosecution or defence lest it prejudice their respective cases.  It must be properly funded to allow for the assessor to be sufficiently protected and supported.  It must be carried out promptly to maintain its validity as well as avoid the many months if not years of inhumane solitary confinement that dogs have to endure after seizure by the police, frequently for very minor misdemeanours.  The assessment must also allow for sensitive interviewing of all involved parties to ascertain the truth about their own behaviour, past and present, and how this may have impacted upon the actions of the dog in question.  The conclusion of such an assessment may then be that the dog should be euthanased in the best interests of all concerned.

The aim we must all keep in mind is how to manage and educate both children and dogs, and the adults whose responsibility they both are, in order that they can learn how to behave safely together.  Contrary to popular assumption, similar numbers of thoroughly 'responsible' dog owners end up the wrong side of the Dangerous Dogs Act, as of less desirable sections of society, for the simple reason that people of all social backgrounds are equally incapable of predicting and controlling what their dog might do.  There is evidence from other countries that there is no behavioural difference between Pitbull types and Golden Retrievers in normal social situations and that 'dangerous dogs' legislation both here and abroad has done nothing to reduce the incidence of dog bites.  Simply creating more restrictive legislation, continuing to criminalise breeds, muzzling dogs or killing them, and punishing their owners, yet without any informed guidance as to how to move forward in a humane and educational manner, will not solve a thing.

Yours faithfully,

Kendal Shepherd, BVSc., CCAB (Certified Clinical Animal Behaviourist), MRCVS

Published on EDDR web site with with kind permission

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