Breed Specific Legislation

NOTE FROM LOU:

Due to the high incidence of dog attacks in South Africa there has been some discussion about introducing legislation along the lines of the UK “Dangerous Dogs Act”. It is interesting to note the article below discussing the Dutch take on Breed Specific Legislation.

Dutch Dog Bite Study Condemns Breed Specific Legislation

Posted by Ryan O'Meara on September 6, 2010

As many of you will know, the Netherlands once operated a dangerous dogs law that was closely modelled on the UK’s 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act, in that it attempted to combat the problem of dog attacks by banning certain ‘types’ of dogs. This concept is known as breed specific legislation.

Well, ever the free thinkers (the type who don’t let media hype determine the laws of the land, but instead look toward REAL facts when legislating), the Netherlands no longer operates breed specific legislation and has instead pursued a more educational approach to canine laws. Now a new study has been carried out in the Netherlands which overwhelmingly concludes that a ban on dog breeds has zero effect as a means to reduce or eradicate dog bites.

Here’s an extract from the study.

As part of an evaluation of Dutch breed specific legislation, data were collected from dog bite victims (1078) and dog owners (6139) using Internet surveys.

The incidence rate of dog bites and details of incidents (victims, injuries, circumstances and aggressors) are reported and the justification for using breed specific measurements to deal with dog bites are considered. For aggressors, attack records for breed groups and popular breeds were established by calculating breed risk indices using a reference population.

Several breeds and breed groups were over- and under-represented in the biting population and there was a mismatch between risk indices and the then-current legislation.

Mitigation strategies should not be based on attack records (since this would lead to the rejection of a significant proportion of the canine population) but on the circumstances of the incidents. Preventative measures must focus on a better understanding of how to handle dogs.

Brent Toellner over at the excellent KC Dog Blog has seen a copy of the report and he shares some of the findings on his site (you really should have a look: link).

Of particular note, this passage:

“Our findings, like those from other groups, do not support the use of an attack record in developing mitigation strategies. We found that all dogs can bite and therefore one should always be careful when interacting with a dog, even a family dog and during play. if we were to use base mitigation strategies on attack records, this would not lead to the establishment of feasible actions to take.

Removing the most common biters would also imply removing the most common breeds; for example, we found that the Jack Russell terrier was responsible for approximately 10% fo the bites and 8/10 of the most popular breeds were the most common biters (including the highly polymorphic group of mixed breed/mongrel). Eliminating these breeds is neither practicable nor desirable.”