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With hundreds of breeds to choose from, many dog owners would
have been prepared to accept restrictions on the import or
ownership of the dozen breeds perceived to be specifically
intended for fighting. In fact, though seldom reported, the
victims of dog attacks, besides humans, are often other dogs,
and big, ferocious dogs are not popular amongst dog owners.
It still is not clear what the suppliers of dog-related products
have to gain from being associated with dangerous dogs. They
might have taken the line that with dangerous breeds out of
the argument, any dog attacks occurring are anomalous. But
they have chosen to argue that breed makes no difference to
temperament, and removing certain breeds from the environment
will not reduce the incidence or severity of dog bites. This
assertion that breed makes no difference flies in the face
of some of what dog breeders have been trading on for centuries.
Now we are being asked to believe that it is all a matter
of training. Here it should be noted that the opponents of
breed-specific legislation have already instructed the scientists
they intend to employ as to the results they want. In today's
thinking, this is not unreasonable. Why pay for results which
do not further one's purposes? The criterion of 'aggressiveness'
has been deliberately chosen. The term means an emotional
urge to attack first, to start a quarrel. Now, it is well
known that, generally, animals do not attack spontaneously.
There has to be some kind of stimulus. It is therefore not
going to be difficult to devise experimental conditions under
which specimens of dogs of various breeds do or do not attack.
The conclusions that will be built upon such seemingly uninteresting
results will not be trivial, however. Quite apart from any
challenge to existing law, these results will be invoked to
assert that anyone bitten by a dog must have done something
to provoke the animal. Already, this has been argued in cases
brought to court.
One of the factors often overlooked in viewing dog/human
hostile incidents is the assumption that the dog has been
integrated into human society. Many dog owners delude themselves
about this (and expect others to go along with the delusion).
But Man's dominance of the dog has had to be deliberately
evolved. Species-wise, Man is the dog's dinner. It therefore
comes as no surprise that, given the right circumstances,
any dog will follow its innate instinct to attack a human.
Dog experts accept these facts and acknowledge them in the
conditioning schedules designed to make puppies subservient
to their human masters. In fact, the ability to bring this
about is key to promoting dogs in society.
Dog experts also accept that the conditioning process is
not complete in all cases, and that this is the main reason
why people are attacked by dogs. The other reason is situational,
where the dog feels a threat either to itself or to its owner.
So the aim of the scientific research referred to above is
to prove that a person is as likely to be attacked by one
breed as by another. In fact, over a number of years surveys
from widely separated locations have shown that some breeds
are more inclined to bite than are others. One of the breeds
for which the frequency of bite incidents is high in relation
to the numbers owned is the German Shepherd dog (known popularly
as the Alsatian). Conventional wisdom has it that this particular
breed is the ideal pet and is 'good with children'. The facts
suggest otherwise. The dog press has recently featured anecdotal
assertions that all biting incidents have involved dogs not
in the 'dangerous' category. This is hardly surprising, because
in the period since the Dangerous Dogs Act came into force, the number of
examples of those breeds in the UK has become smaller and
smaller.
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