Who’s Policing The Police? March 3, 2009 by
Ryan O'Meara It’s getting to the point now where a very worrying trend is
developing. Dogs are dying, weekly, in police care - more dogs are
being seized as ‘pit bull type’ which actually look nothing
more than American Bulldog or Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross who are
being ABUSED and neglected having never shown a single shred of
aggression to anyone.
The UK government needs to step in and stop this, right now.
If we don’t replace breed specific legislation with a fair,
effective law that will protect the public and end the routine death
and abuse of dogs which have NEVER been aggressive or acted
dangerously, how can we, in good conscience, expect the public to
elevate animal welfare standards?
Does the animal welfare act not apply to police seized dogs?
When will we realise that any country that routinely kills dogs
because of what they look like can NEVER lay claim to being a nation of
animal lovers.
If we rounded up every single Bullbreed dog in the UK today and
euthanised each one, would we honestly believe that we’d just
solved the dangerous dog problem?
No! Of course not, it’s a ludicrous idea. So just what the
HELL are we doing seizing random dogs, here and there, subjecting them
to conditions which are actually MORE likely to turn a placid family
pet in to a disturbed, scared animal - at best - and in a worse case,
see that pet die or suffer, for absolutely no reason?
We have a law that is acknowledged to have failed.
The Kennel Club don’t support BSL, the RSPCA don’t, the
Dogs Trust doesn’t, dog wardens don’t - so why do we still
have it? It’s still here. It’s still affecting people every
day. It’s still the route cause of much death and suffering. What
more needs to happen before we acknowledge that we have royally cocked
it up on dangerous dogs?
In 1990, the Labour government opposed Kenneth Baker’s
Dangerous Dogs Act. They suggested an alternative that would involve
dogs and owners being licenced.
Well, they’ve been in power long enough, they’ve even
had their own MPs speak out against the ineffectiveness of the law -
yet they keep it.
Why?
Well, I can only assume it’s because we just haven’t
made the case against the law loudly enough. We haven’t made the
dog owner vote count. There are 7.3m dog owners in the UK. You have a
voice. You can and SHOULD speak up on the issues that - may not effect
your own dog - but absolutely DO affect the species you love.
Please, read this.Then please - make your voice heard.