Big beefy head, powerful jaws and a near bald hairless coat, the Japanese Tosa is looking for a scrap. Stick on a heavy studded collar and a thick choke-chain and, apart from the eighteen-lace DM’s and turned-up drainpipes, this dozy looking dick-head of a dog wouldn’t look out of place at a BNP rally.
You think I am joking? Well I wish I was, but on estates across Britain the yobs weapon of choice these days are deadly pack animals ready to be unleashed on their victims with devastating effect.
Take the killing of Seyi Ogunyemi last year when a group of Lambeth youths set their dogs on him before stabbing him to death. This is the first case of its kind in Britain where a gang has used dogs to bring down its victim and it’s unlikely to be the last. Then there’s four-year-old Paul Massey mauled to death in Liverpool by the family dog while granny baby-sat.
Other than some vague mutterings by Home Secretary Alan Johnson this week about amending the Dangerous Dogs Act, these cases have caused little more than a murmur across dog besotted Britain. Infants torn apart by dogs are quietly forgotten and it’s “business as usual” for Staffordshire Terrier/Bull Mastiff’s like the one that brought down sixteen year old Seyi.
The tabloids palpably salivate when a toddler goes missing or better still (for them) killed and as predictable as Pavlov’s dogs they wheel out the suspects: the loners, paedophiles, and the born-evil kids from the council estate. We never hear the end of it, but when the killing is done by a Staffordshire Terrier, the dog most likely to be waddling, tongue out with his owner swaggering off to buy his “red-top”, we hear nothing, well not much.
OK, an amended act giving local authorities the power to muzzle and castrate would be a start, but a dog without balls isn’t really a dog at all and if Alan Johnson had his way, dogs wouldn’t even be able to bark for muzzling. Not much of a life is it? All that would be left for “man’s best friend” to amuse itself would be to aimlessly urinate against every conceivable lamppost and dump turds on the pavement.
A new Dangerous Dogs Act is expected to create new laws empowering the police to whip the nuts off deviant dogs at the first sniff of trouble, but do we really want eunuch dogs as companions? There must be a better way for councils to keep the public safe without resorting to this kind of cruelty. The well-to-do owner I witnessed rugby tackling a mongrel off her Labrador may well be looking forward for Labour’s new neutering laws, but two wrongs don’t make a right, even if the ill-bred ruffian was doing its upmost to contaminate her perfect pedigree genes.
It’s not as if the legislation isn’t there to protect children, it’s just that current dog law doesn’t work. Yes, all dogs, even a Chihuahua (once the Home Secretary has got around to considering it) can be put to death by law, but by the time the barbarous nature of the dog comes to light it’s often too late. Except for the likes the banned Japanese Tosa’s and the Pit Bull Terrier, the 1991 Act is not protecting the public from dog attack.
The fact is that before Alan Johnson’s intervention this week, unless dogs are killing foxes most of our MPs are not very interested. To be fair much MP’s time is now taken up whining about reduced expenses to spare hundreds of hours debating dogs. 700 hours of parliamentary time was spent debating the English middle class penchant for sending dogs into battle against the fox, but when a child is ripped apart by dogs in Nana's front room MP’s do next to nothing.
It’s no good appealing to the owners for reason either, they’re too much in love. Listen to Staffy owner Lauren Smith: “I have always been around dogs since I was little mainly King Charles, last year me and my partner bought a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. He is no different from any other dog I have had before, it’s all about the owners; if you train your dog right then your dog will be a brilliant pet.”
Train your dog, yeah right? Why should we listen to sycophantic dog owners anyway, people who, for one reason or another, are so dissatisfied with their own species that they prefer a relationships with thier pets.
I’ll be honest; I am sceptical that it’s possible to reverse thousands of years of evolution to tame the teeth from a Staffy’s gormless gob. If dogs are so easily trainable then why haven’t their owners ever been able to persuade them to scoop up their own crap?
You can’t walk anywhere in Britain without the prospect of having to dodge dog shit. Humans, for all their faults, don’t down-trousers and dump a bronze on the high street, so why is this reasonable behaviour for our “brilliant pets”? Is there anything sadder than experiencing a proud owner waiting for their “little boy” to finish their business then pop it steaming into their handbag? Frankly, Britain’s dangerous dogs are incapable of being taught the most basic of things, let alone not biting the kids.
Just weeks before the general election the Government took the first tentative steps to end Britain’s unnatural fixation with dogs. With more than 100 people admitted to hospital every week following dog attacks and £10m to be spent kennelling dangerous dogs while their fate is decided, it’s time (just to be safe) to get rid of the lot.
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