New Bill Could Repeal Dangerous Dogs Act - The Kennel Club
The Kennel Club has welcomed a Bill tabled today in the House of Lords by Liberal Democrat Peer, Lord Redesdale, which would repeal the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and Dogs Act 1871.

The Kennel Club, which runs the secretariat for the Dangerous Dogs Act Study Group (DDASG), has long been calling on the government to repeal the current legislation and believes that it is the breed specific nature of current legislation that has caused it to fail. Focusing on individual breeds has not prevented a large number of dog attacks. Lord Redesdale’s ‘Dog Control Act’ will do far more to protect the public, responsible owners and their dogs.

If passed the Bill will introduce three major changes to current dangerous dogs legislation:

Instead of banning specific breeds of dog, the dog’s behaviour – as well as its treatment by its owner – will be used to determine if it is a risk to public safety.
Instead of applying only to attacks that take place in public, the Bill will also make attacks on private property a criminal offence.
It would be an offence to breed dogs for fighting or to keep a dog that has been used for fighting.
Said Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club spokesperson: “The Kennel Club has been working with Lord Redesdale and a number of other organisations to provide assistance and advice in drafting his Bill. The current legislation is draconian and severely flawed, and does little to protect the public. Lord Redesdale’s proposals are measured and would do what the Dangerous Dogs Act should have done in the first place, which is to target irresponsible owners.”

Said Lord Redesdale: “The Dangerous Dogs Act is a bad piece of legislation that places the responsibility on dogs, this Bill puts the responsibility on the owners themselves. This should address the problem on our streets and go some way in combating the growing culture of using dogs as weapons.”

Said Edward Lister, Council Leader of Wandsworth Borough Council, which is a member of the DDASG: “The head of our dog unit has been working hard with the other members of the Dangerous Dogs Act Study Group to think through the best way to enable police and local councils to tackle this problem. We can no longer just allow people to own these dogs and let them act in an aggressive way. Something has to be done. We believe the measures outlined in this Bill are the best way forward. Together with our new dog microchipping scheme, they would go a long way towards tackling this problem.”

Thoughts ?

that does make sense...
would they lift bans on pits?

Well iv not much to say im not really familiar with what goes on, but i do agree that the dogs are in the wrong hands and needs sorting out, dog fighting is wrong,but is that the dogs fault no its humans who let this happen but i dont think pitbulls should be banned they are not aggresive dogs its the satupid idiots who own them

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sounds good to me. a dog and its owner should be judged on its behaviour. there's to bernese near me which are unbelievably dog aggressive but the owner has never been done because they aren't "dangerous dogs".

If it goes ahead there would not be any banned breeds,as far as I am concerned there should not be breed bans or restrictions,the irresponsible owners should be dealt with,which seems to be what they are proposing.

Interesting.. So then all 4 of the Banned Breeds would be back.. would be interesting to see what the reaction of the general public would be

No doubt misleading tabloid headlines about "devil dogs" etc,will scaremonger a good portion of the public!!

I would imagine there will be uproar despite no records of three of them ever biting anyone.

"this Bill puts the responsibility on the owners themselves."

What a relief, I thought I was the only one who thought this.
Thank god the government have finally decided to take some expert advice on the dangerous dogs act situation and that they have hopefully realized that this is just common sense and really quite obvious.
However, I was severely dissapointed to hear just now on the news that; considering the very recent horrific attack of two rottweilers on a postman, ministers are angered because they feel that the dangerous dogs act must be made tougher and to pretty much get rid of all 'aggressive breed' dogs. Ofcourse this is absolutely laughable, its 100% the owners responsibility. These rottweilers in the recent attack did not know of anything else but aggression because the owner did not show them anything else, its like being locked in a room, the only thing you are going to want to do is get out! There is no other option and you've been shown no other option. This isn't the best relation but I'm going to explain further.

I am going to include an example in my argument here; take Cesar Milan, the famous dog rehabilitator of Los Angeles, he has a pack of around 40 dogs, all of which have had problems in the past, a lot of them infact are rottweilers, pitbulls and other dogs bred and trained to fight and kill, literally, some of their previous owners have trained them for years to attack other humans or dogs in fighting pits. Obviously, previous owners out of the picture, Cesar Milan was able to rehabilitate them all and dogs who have previously wanted to kill other beings, now are extremely calm, happy, social, friendly and submissive. This is just one of many examples but the point is; no matter the breed, no matter the size, no matter what, the dogs behaviour is solely based upon the owner/handlers ability to fulfil their needs.
In-fact, a chiwuahwuah is capable of the same attack on the postman mentally, but practically wouldn't do much damage. The dangerous dogs act needlessly punishes dogs simply for their size and CAPABILITY and for their owners problems not their own. Like I said, responsibility rests 100% on the owner no matter what.
I'm sad to report that the rottweilers who attacked the postman were, as many other dogs have needlessly been, 'destroyed'. Ofcourse, put under a new owner, these dogs could've led extremely happy and fulfilling non-aggressive lives and its extremely sad to see these dogs punished for something that is 100% NOT their fault.
Unfortunately, with increasing number of bad owners (and inevitabely dog attacks on humans) it is likely that, as the government always does in these situations, simply clamp down on it. The government must realize that dogs lives are equal to ours and that this is serious. The government only sees the attacks on the humans as serious and that the dogs must be punished. Someone needs to speak up, like Tony Blair said during his rule, 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' the same attitude must be taken towards dogs and dog attacks and the government must realize it is 100% the owners responsibility.
I've flamed the problem enough, so I need to offer a solution, as all good arguments do. The dangerous dogs act must be changed to suit the name 'dangerous owners act' and the ideas that come with that are pretty obvious (the owner is responsible and THEY must be punished or educated). Dogs that are victims of attacks (I say victims because the dogs who attack the humans are the real victims, forced to lead aggressive lives) must be given a new owner to be rehabilitated, obviously preferably a professional handler or experienced handler OR the current owner must be THOROUGHLY educated. To counter any possible arguments, yes, some dogs are unrehabilitable, that is, that they simply have been fed too much violence and cannot be changed, this is a very small percent of the case, literally only around 0.5% of these dogs can't be rehabilitated and given fresh new happy lives and thus, must be put down, for THEIR OWN good.

I could write a book on this subject but as this is a forum post I'm going to finish up here, I hope people out there agree with this. I'm just one person who knows enough about dogs, I'm not a professional, but I 100% feel my view on this subject is the right one. The government needs some common sense on this matter.

Thanks for reading if you did and I hope this was informing and to your agreement.

Please don't hesitate to counter my argument or add to it or PM me.

-George Manning