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NZ’s ‘Dangerous Dog’ Laws to be Reviewed
Following a spate of dog attacks on children – six in the last month, half of them by pit bulls or pit bull crosses – the government has promised to dust off ‘stalled’ dog control legislation. There have been predictable calls from MPs to ban and destroy all dangerous dogs and dangerous breeds. Local Government Minister, Nick Smith, has promised that a review will be completed in March of this year. The last law changes in New Zealand were made in 2003 and resulted in the outlawing of four breeds of dog: American pit bull terriers, Dogo Argentinos, Brazilian Filas and Japanese Tosas. Those already here must be muzzled on the street and kept behind fences at home.
But these laws have been tried around the world and have been shown not to work. There are no inherently dangerous breeds of dog, only dangerous owners. The dog control officers have a saying: “Show me ten bad dogs and I’ll show you nine bad owners”.
Anyone following these stories will notice that the dogs are almost always identified as Staffordshire or pit bull crosses. These are, indeed, dogs that were bred to fight and have a reputation for viciousness. It is this reputation and dangerous image that attracts the wrong kind of owner, those who see their dog as an accessory to their macho image or, in some cases, as a weapon. Yet owners who care for them well say that Staffordshires are among the most loyal and gentle of dogs if they are raised and trained well and, perhaps most importantly for their interaction with humans, are properly socialised with people and other dogs.
While my heart goes out to the children who have been bitten and their parents, it must be noted that many dog behaviour experts recommend that children be kept away from dogs until they are of an age at which they understand how to behave around dogs. Many signs of human affection such as eye contact and placing heads close together are perceived as aggression by dogs. A child cannot resist pulling on ears and poking at noses but these exploratory gestures, as endearing as they are to us, can be all it takes to provoke an animal that cannot be expected to distinguish between clumsiness and attack to defend itself. A characteristic view is that of Owen Dance, President of the New Zealand Kennel Club who told Radio New Zealand that:
Such attacks happen once in a while and would continue until more parents properly educated their children about how to behave around dogs. It was hard to find examples of farmers’ dogs biting farmers’ children, he said. “And in nearly 40 years of the kennel club I have never heard of a kennel club member’s child being bitten by one of their dogs.”
Nevertheless, it is the dogs that are inevitably blamed. But there is little consistency over time in what dogs are the problem breeds. In past decades, Rottweilers, Dobermans, German Shepherds, Newfoundlands and even Bloodhounds have been considered to be dangerous breeds.
A good summary paper by Associate Professor Kevin Stafford (Institute of Veterinary Animal and Biomedical Sciences, Massey University) contains the following observations on an international review of academic literature on dog attacks finding that:
[T]he breeds most represented in dog bite data (1) vary over time, (2) are popular and (3) are not in proportion to their actual population. In almost all studies mongrels are the most common type of dog involved in attacks on humans. The variation in breed over time suggests that if specific dog breeds are legislated against, then another breed or type will be developed to meet demand for aggressive canines.
However, this view is not shared by all. Bob Kerridge, executive director of the SPCA in New Zealand has said that “the pit bull is the exception to the way we talk about dogs. No dogs are born bad, except pit bulls – owners make them bad”. The Auckland SPCA recently released a statement outlining why they will not adopt out pit bulls:
No dog will be considered for adoption if we believe it may pose a risk to the community by virtue of behaviour, temperament or the … potential to cause serious harm or injury. The Auckland SPCA considers the risks associated with adopting pit bulls or pit bull crosses too high given the Dog Control Act declares them to be dangerous and we believe we have a duty of care to the community.
So will law changes make much of a difference? How are they to be targeted? The Guardian recently published a piece on the ineffectiveness of the dangerous dog laws in Britain. In 1991, at the height of a tabloid frenzy sparked by a rash of dog attacks in England, the Major government passed a rushed piece of legislation which outlawed four breeds and made it an offence to ‘have a dog dangerously out of control in a public place’ - although the majority of attacks take place in domestic settings. Yet, the number of dog attacks has increased and there are more of the prohibited breeds on the streets now than before the legislation was introduced.
Similarly in New Zealand, despite a toughening of the law in 2003, the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) has received 11,078 claims for dog attacks in the past year. This is a substantial increase from the 8,677 cases in 2003. Of the 2011 claims, 872 were children aged under four and 891 were for children aged between five and nine years.
In Auckland, submissions are being taken on Auckland Council’s proposal to introduce a new dog policy and bylaw for the region – which will replace the seven bylaws and policies inherited from previous councils. The new bylaw, which should be in operation by October, includes making seasonal start and finish times for dog access on beaches and parks uniform across the city, neutering ‘menacing’ and uncontrolled dogs and standardising dog access rules for playgrounds, sports grounds, carparks, campgrounds and footpaths. I will write more on the development of this policy and the government review as they happen.
I can’t help but feel that while there is undoubtedly a problem with the number of dog attacks on humans, a greater focus on owner reponsibility and training rather than simply banning or victimising particular breeds is far more likely to result in a reduction of these than current policy settings.
Featured
Just a quick note on the Animal Justice Fund, administered by SAFE, funded from Jan Cameron’s (founder of the hugely-successful outdoor equipment company, Kathmandu) fortune which allocates $2 million for whistleblowers. Between $5 000 and $30 000 can be awarded in each instance that leads to a successful prosecution or ‘significant animal welfare outcome.’
To date, at least six workers have ‘dobbed in’ bosses for animal cruelty. But none want to accept the reward.
All were for dairy farms and piggeries. None of the workers were still employed by the farms they were laying complaints against, so the cases and information are considered ‘historical’ and hence a low priority for investigation. Four of these cases were referred to MAF. According to SAFE’s Hans Kriek:
Paddocks were in bad shape, there were stones and lame cows. There were high mortality rates amongst calves. Dying animals were being left to rot in paddocks. With the pig farms we had the usual complaints … that the conditions were terrible and enclosures weren’t cleaned out and the animals were standing a foot deep in their own muck.
Yet, no breaches of the relevant welfare codes were found in any case. Continue reading
As of 1 July 2010, the use of any animal in a circus has been banned in Bolivia. A handful of other countries have banned the use of wild animals in circuses but only Bolivia has banned exploitation of domestic animals in circuses as well.
The bill took two years to pass through both chambers of the Plurinational Assembly, meeting stiff opposition from the eastern states of Bolivia where there was concern that the law would be expanded to include bullfighting, which is popular in rural villages. Bullfighting remains legal in Bolivia.
The legislature were eventually won over by a screening of videos shot by undercover circus infiltrators in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia co-ordinated and funded by Animal Defence International (ADI), a London-based NGO which found that ill-treatment and violence against animals in circuses is commonplace.
The oddly familiar-looking Constitutional Court of Spain
Bullfighting was banned in the autonomous Spanish region of Catalonia on 28 July this year, with the ban coming into full effect in 2012.
Now, three months to the day later, the Spanish Constitutional Court (housed in a rather Beehive-esque building) has accepted an appeal lodged by the Partido Popular (People’s Party, PP) challenging Catalonia’s ban on cultural, economic and administrative grounds. The PP is a conservative, nationalist party known for such other legislative projects as restricting immigration to Catalonia and deporting immigrants who have not learnt the Catalan language to proposed minimum standards.
Spain’s Catalonian regional parliament has banned bullfighting in a vote of 68 – 55 with nine abstaining.
It is the second Spanish region after the Canary Islands (which banned bullfighting in 1991) to outlaw the practice and the first on the mainland.
Bullfighting is a brutal spectacle in which the torture and death of the bull is the end of a life-long process of abuse and mistreatment (I’ve written on this in more detail here) and this is a significant victory for a coalition of Catalonian animal rights groups called “Prou!” meaning “Enough!” They initated the vote by submitting a 180 000-signature petition to the parliament, calling for a ban.
The vote was not a cut-and-dry animal welfare issue as the rejection of this emblematically Spanish tradition is also widely interpreted as animated by separatist sentiment. Of Spain’s semi-autonomous regions, Catalunya has the greatest degree of autonomy along with the Basque region. It has even been suggested that the vote was calculated in last-minute lobbying as retaliation for a recent decision from Spain’s Constitutional court which has curtailed some of the proudly-independent region’s autonomy in law-making.
This is an exciting advance made against one of the most tradition-bound forms of animal suffering. The commercial significance of the ‘sport’ falls far short of that in the Spanish capital of Madrid and Andalucia to the South, when the law comes into effect in 2012 it will close Barcelona’s last remaining bullring, La Monumental. This may limit the spread of the ban to the other regions.
But there is still work to do. Activists have now set their sights on a ban on the Correbous, an annual festival in the region in which flaming torches and even fireworks are fastened to the bulls’ horns and they are set loose, frightened, disoriented and often suffering burns, to run around an enclosure for the amusement of onlookers.
I’m fed up. I’m normally very positive when it comes to food, and coffee. My diet is the (vegan) opposite of James’ porridge-and-apricots hike: Varied, spicy, and (too often) pricey fare. On the weekend, I often relax by visiting a cafe with a friend or a novel. When I need to plan my time in a busy patch, an espresso and my diary is the go.
And I think that it is easy to make, and to buy, varied and enjoyable vegan food in Auckland (and in Hamilton, Wellington, and Christchurch, if not elsewhere in New Zealand). There are a lot of vegan options in cafes and restaurants. Sure, it’s not New York and it’s not Melbourne (If anyone reading this wants to open a Lord of the Fries franchise in Auckland: I and my friends will keep you in business. Not joking.), but it’s not bad.
Cafes, however? I’m going to be honest. Most of the time, they don’t capitalise on the vegan market well enough. That’s not good for veganism, not good for vegans, and not good for cafe owners. Continue reading
Introduction
Last week, Crafar Farms skulked back into the news. And so did cattle rustling, a phenomenon most of us last encountered in a Spaghetti Western. However, Sunday last week, the Herald reported the theft of 1,000 to 2,000 cows. To quote:
Michael Stiassny is missing a few cows – more than 1000. Stiassny was appointed receiver of the Crafarms group in October after the family-owned company collapsed under heavy debts and multiple prosecutions for effluent discharge.
The stolen cows have a commercial value in excess of one million dollars. So what is Crafar’s receiver to do? Call the police, of course:
Stiassny … said he would be approaching police.
This is probably no surprise. After all, cattle are property. Stealing cattle is theft. Theft is a crime. When a crime is committed, you call the police. Simple. But a different logic applied in September, when Crafar was outed for gross violations of the most basic welfare standards. Breaches of the Animal Welfare Act 1999 (the Act) are crimes, but no one called the police on Crafar. Why not?
