"Killer Dogs" Cause Havoc in Inner Sydney Suburb.

[Deeds]

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/horror-as-killer-dogs-cause-havoc-in-booming-inner-sydney-suburbs/news-

 

story/07a9f3bf6f42a18bf361b6bae36fd502

[tdierikx]

The footage shown is disturbing for sure. What stands out is that it looks like the owners of the dogs in question are there and trying to help get them away from the target, but the lack of leads and collars is making that difficult. At no stage do the dogs seem to be targetting any humans, and appear to be being handled by at least 2 individuals with no aggression shown. The target is solely the on-lead dog, which is clearly not impressed at being approached in an aggressive manner and is trying to retaliate. Notably, not one of the 3 off-lead dogs is of any bull breed mix visible to the eye.

 

This sort of reporting both highlights the issues that are becoming more prevalent, but also incites negative reactions to dogs being out in public spaces - especially larger breed dogs. Dog are increasingly being restricted from more and more places other than their own homes, which in turn reduces the opportunities to socialise them to multiple scenarios and experiences. Is it any wonder that we are seeing less sociable behaviours?

 

Legislators are all too happy to enact laws without considering the long term effects of that legislation. Also, it's far easier to legislate a ban on anything they don't like than it is to legislate anything that requires policing/enforcing. The problems we are seeing here are a result of poor legislative application - especially in the policing/enforcing of said legislation. The article highlights the lacklustre responses from police and local council officers when called to deal with an incident - time matters here, and neither enforcement agency mentioned seems willing or able to allocate resources in a timely manner when an incident occurs. What we have here is not simply a "dog problem", it's a policing resources problem.

 

I fully agree that there is no room for antisocial dogs in public spaces, but we also need to consider the statistics here. Consider how many pet owners have larger breed dogs in relation to the number of negative interactions with larger dogs in public spaces. What is less likely to be reported (or factored into dog attack data) is the number of negative interactions with smaller breeds of dog, simply because the damage incurred is less than that of a larger dog. The data is therefore skewed to one particular premise - that is that larger breed dogs are all inherently dangerous - and can lead to knee-jerk reactionary legislation based on that skewed data.

 

T.

[persephone]

Thank you, T for your view. I didn't even read the original - came straight to you! I agree with you.