Dangerous Dogs

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I, too, will try to be brief. I congratulate the hon. Members for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on their accurate and appropriate comments about this serious issue.

I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the latest in a long series of cases that have hit the headlines in my constituency. On 7 May, the headline in the local paper stated: “Savage dog went in for the kill”. It recounted the story of an Alsatian cross called Cleo that suffered horrific injuries at the teeth, I suppose, of a husky-type dog in Springfield park in Cheltenham. Her owner was 71-year-old Mr Robbins, who has already had a triple heart bypass. I imagine that he was terrified by the whole incident. It probably posed a threat to his health, and it would certainly have terrified any bystanders, especially parents, who may have imagined what could have happened had it been their child, rather than another animal, that irritated the dog. Mr Robbins said:

“It was a vicious attack and it was horrible to watch…The man was kicking his dog to get him to stop.”

The dog that attacked Cleo was on a lead, but dragged its owner to the ground as it pounced. According to the article,

“Police have not established whether the owner of the other dog could be charged with breaching the dangerous dogs act.”

That may provoke looks of astonishment from the Minister and other hon. Members, but we can draw a few conclusions from that story. First, the dog in question was not one of the four banned breeds—I am not sure when a Japanese Tosa was last seen in Gloucestershire, or whether Gloucestershire constabulary would recognise it if it saw one. Although that part of the legislation should remain—I would not want to be the Minister who removed it and later saw an attack by a dog of that breed—emphasis needs to shift away from breed and towards behaviour.

Secondly, because the attack was on an animal rather than a human, it carries less weight under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, and that issue needs to be tackled. Thirdly, the owner tried to control his dog by kicking it which, as we have often noted, suggests that the origin of the dog’s problem lies with the owner. As the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton rightly pointed out, there is no definitive way of identifying a dog’s owner. I know from Cheltenham animal shelter and other places that at times, people have claimed ownership of a dog until they realised that they were at risk of prosecution, at which point they passed the animal to someone else. That also has to be tackled. Universal microchipping is ready to roll. Welfare charities know how to run the system; it takes seconds and costs a few pounds, and if it makes a surplus to enable the provision of more resources for dog control, that would be desirable. The time for universal microchipping has arrived.

We must not, however, wear rose-tinted spectacles when looking at this issue. As well as owner behaviour we must tackle dog behaviour. If a dog is showing extremely aggressive behaviour, as in the case I mentioned in my constituency and other such instances, we need powers to deal with that. The Association of Chief Police Officers, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other organisations have pointed out the importance of early intervention. Whether or not that involves control orders—dog ASBOs, as they have been called—we need something to enable properly licensed persons in a local area, including those who work in animal shelters, local authority employers and the police, to exercise professional judgment about whether a dog is dangerous.

One animal I saw at Cheltenham animal shelter was so aggressive that the well-trained staff could approach it only with a humane version of a cattle prod. They were not clear who the owner was, and did not know whether, if someone claimed to be its owner, they would have to release that dog out into the community. The dog that attacked poor Cleo is still at large in Cheltenham. Something is badly wrong if we cannot confiscate a dog when necessary. Even if no attack has taken place on a human being or been documented to the satisfaction of current legislation, if a dog is clearly aggressive in the eyes of professionals, they should have the power to confiscate it. They do not necessarily need to put it down; it could be neutered, trained or re-homed. In extremis, sometimes a dog may need to be put down. Unless such matters are tackled with care and a degree of urgency, I fear that I will read more headlines like the one that I quoted from the Gloucestershire Echo, and I would not want that. I hope that the Minister understands the urgency of the problem.