Questions Unanswered in Kennel Club BSL Controversy
Posted By Alison Green Date: 19/02 Posted Under: Breed Specific Legislation, Canine Columns, Dangerous DogsOn Monday 18th February, the Kennel Club held their pit bull identification course. Trainees spent a shocking 2.5 hours learning how to identify a dog based on it having a substantial number of characteristics of “a pit bull type”.
In a recent article on the subject I asked, among other questions:
Whether there will be a “type” dog examined on the day by the trainees is unknown, if it is a registered dog it is safe, if not what will happen to this dog examined on the day?
The Kennel Club are aware of the article. They posted a reply. Which reads as follows:
The Kennel Club is disappointed not to have been approached to comment on this story.
The reason this seminar has been organised is because for many years the Kennel Club has held a list of people who have been able to act as witnesses for the defence. We have now reached the situation where there are only a few people who are able to do this across the UK. This seminar, and similar meetings we have held, is designed to extend this list which will ultimately assist in preventing further dogs being wrongly identified.
What they have not done however, is answer the question nor any of the other questions asked of them in the article or by concerned dog lovers who felt compelled to leave a reply.
It is true, I did not contact the Kennel Club before writing the article, however, the Kennel Club found the article and replied failing to answer any of the questions raised. So once more I will try and get answers to the questions put forward.
This is a pit bull identification course. This says to me that this must include at least one pit bull type. Otherwise it really isn’t a course of any use. Its common sense to use a pit bull type to show someone what a pit bull type looks like. No point using a Labrador. So we have to assume there is at least one type dog there.
There is a small problem if they are using a registered dog. Registered Pit bull types have to be tattooed. The tattoo is on the inside of the back leg. It is very very noticeable. Asking trainees to try and establish which dog in any line up is a pit bull type wont need any skill at all. Simply the ability to spot a rather obvious tattoo.
If the dog is not a registered dog then we have a situation that doesn’t sit very well with me. What happens to this dog after the trainees have finished measuring and handling the dog? If there is no owner there’s no one to fight for the dog and save its life. With no owner, the dog will die.
We have to assume that the type dog/s have very good temperaments. I cant see anyone allowing any dog with a questionable temperament to be handled by a room full of strangers.
So the course is held, the “experts” do their thing and the dog/s future is not known to us.
When the Kennel Club replied to my last article they could have answered the questions raised. They didn’t. I’m sure I am not the only one who is wondering if, after the course, a dog will die.
There are other questions still left unanswered. Some of the questions were raised in the first article, some from concerned members of the public in the comments. For ease I will re list all the questions here in such a way a simple yes or no answer can be given in the hope the Kennel Club will respond. The Kennel Club are more than welcome to expand on any issues they wish to. They opted not to answer the questions I posed to them as follows:
1.     Will the course include the use of a “pit bull type” dog or dogs?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
2.     Will any “pit bull type” dogs used be registered dog/s and safe?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
3.     If an unregistered dog is used does the dog have an owner willing to go through the registration process?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
4.     If an unregistered dog is used will that dog be destroyed due to no owner?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
5.     Is it possible that the “experts” will go into pounds or rescues to identify “pit bull type” dogs without owners?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
6.     Is it possible that the “experts” will use their new found knowledge to identify dogs in the course of their every day jobs?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
7.     Is it possible that the “experts” can give evidence for the prosecution?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
8.     Is it possible that the experts could wrongly identify a dog as “type”?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
9.     Is there any provision in place to ensure all dogs are seen by a more experienced expert to confirm or challenge the identification of the KC experts?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
10.  Is this course under the remit of the Kennel club?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
11. Did the Kennel Club consult with any anti B.S.L groups before deciding to hold this course?
(’The Kennel Club chose not to answer this question’ )
The Kennel Club have refuted the criticism of the course.
Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club Secretary said, “The KC is extremely saddened that despite all the lobbying it leads against BSL across the UK, the funding it provided for leading canine defence solicitor Trevor Cooper to defend the dogs taken in the Liverpool amnesty and all the support it has given to BSL groups such as Deed Not Breed, it is being accused of ’signing dogs death warrants’”.
“On the contrary, the Kennel Club with the help of Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, Trevor Turner and Trevor Cooper organised the seminar on identification to replenish a list that it has ALWAYS had of people who are willing to work for defence solicitors in dangerous dog cases as identification experts. Working for defence solicitors does not mean that the experts are not neutral, but does mean that their opinion can reliably guide the course of action the solicitor chooses to follow”.
“It was clarified that attending this one seminar alone would not instantly make a court view somebody as an identification expert. Their own qualifications as vets or behaviourists and all other experience they have had with dogs or PBTs would need to convince the court that they were indeed experts”.
“What the seminar did do however, was allow Trevor Cooper to explain the legal procedures and what would happen in court if they did identify a case dog. The seminar was not open to all, but to specific individuals who are dog experts in their own field and who want to help get dogs out of kennels quicker by getting called upon to identify them.”
“It is highly offensive to suggest that organisations and more importantly, individuals such as Trevor Turner and Trevor Cooper who worked tirelessly to get dogs out of kennels and back to their owners would be encouraging people to sign dogs ‘death warrants’.
In their response the Kennel Club have failed to answer any of the questions posed, instead opting to repeatedly mention Trevor Turner and Trevor Cooper who I had not mentioned in this particular article and have the utmost respect for.
They do indeed do fantastic work for cross bred dogs caught up in the legislation. Trevor Cooper’s knowledge on the law is second to none and Trevor Turner’s years of experience truly do show him to be an expert. The article is not about them; its about the dog used, the trainees future roles, the mixed messages the Kennel Club are sending out and whether this is indeed something that falls under the remit of the Kennel Club.
Not one single question has been answered!
As a person very much against BSL I am offended that an organisation feels it can hold a course like this without telling the public and without explaining what has become of the dog used.
I am offended that I am asked to accept a group to be anti BSL when they refuse to demand for removal of BSL because of “political climate”.
I am offended by repeated failure to respond to questions asked particularly when in the past they expressed their disappointment at not being asked. I find it even more offensive when the grapevine feeds back to me to say the dog used at the ID course did not sport a tattoo so could not be a registered dog. Is the grapevine right? We don’t know. The Kennel club have chosen not to answer.
Its very simple. You either agree to allow BSL to continue or you don’t. Its not rocket science. You either want to answer questions or you don’t.
One more time, I urge the Kennel Club to offer answers to the 11 questions posed above. For anyone else reading this, perhaps you have your own feelings on what message the breed identification course sends out with regard to breed specific legislation.
Author DetailsAlison is a long time dog owner and dangerous dog legislation observer who lives with her family and four Bull Breed dogs in Sussex. - See this author's webpage
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Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Breed Specific Legislation, Canine Columns, Dangerous Dogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Thank you for holding the Kennel Club’s feet to the fire on this issue. Someone needs to speak for those unjustly condemned. Thank you K9 for barking out!
It seems so strange to me when those of us in the States have always looked to the UK for humane leadership to see this insanity. Stateside, we are finally getting the message through that its the dog (or more likely the owner), not the breed. Have you noticed that even former fighting dogs like the Vick dogs are being rehabilitated and rehomed? Surely the country that gave the world Shakespeare, Thomas Moore and Francis Bacon can figure out how to understand Pit Bulls.
Once more, Bravo K9!
Couldn’t agree with you more Joy!
If the world ever needs a visual lesson in the folly of BSL and the huge knock on damage it does to a wider variety of animal welfare issues, look to the UK as an example. Dogs are dying and being wrongly demonised. Dog attacks remain consistently upward in their trend. BSL doesn’t work.
Alison
Great article, you have highlighted the fact that when somebody ‘dares’ to be critical of the Kennel Club, they respond with a politician style evasion of the actual question (or in this case 11 questions!) and then claim it is highly offensive to criticise amongst others, the two Trevor’s which you clearly did not? Why will they not answer Alison’s questions? By not answering and being open, they show their elitist attitude and their counter attack is feeble, I wonder how much the ’specific individuals’ who are ‘experts in their own fields’are paid when ‘called upon’? Boo hoo to the establishment types in their ivory towers!
It strikes me that the ‘experts’ that the Kennel Club are preparing will either be very fortunate, very choosy, or be prepared to mislead the court.
Could they be ‘very fortunate’? Well yes, they could leave to others the decision that a dog in a rescue is a Pit Bull Terrier ‘type’ and therefore never be required to sign the “death warrant” the Kennel Club’s statement appears to suggest its ‘experts’ can avoid. If however they do visit such rescues to provide an opinion they will at some point (if they are honest) make a decision that makes it impossible to do anything other than destroy the dog.
Could they be choosy? Yes they could flit around the country carefully avoiding any case in which they believed the dog to be a Pit Bull Terrier by advising the defence that their opinion agreed with the prosecution’s and that therefore there was no need for them to appear and the case should be faught on other grounds - hence making it appear that the ‘prosecution’ experts alone were responsible for determining the dogs type (and “signing the death warrant”).
(One thing the canine press in particular has failed to pick up on are the number of cases in which the dogs ‘type’ has not been contested by the defence, or its experts, and the prosecution evidence that the dog was not a threat to public safety has been used to put the dog on the exemption register rather than demand its destruction - now that the law no longer demands mandatory destruction the prosecution can, and do, take this route where it is felt appropriate).
Of course until such a time as the law is changed, by repeal of section 1, it will remain an offence in the UK to be in posession of a dog of the Pit Bull Terrier ‘type’. The fact that that law is wrongly conceived makes it a difficult law to enforce; but there is great danger if those who pertain to be ‘experts’ decide that because it is wrongly conceived it can be treated with contempt. If experts mislead courts into thinking that these dogs are not what they are, in the absence of well conceived law with which to deal with them, they will, again, be increasingly used to the detriment of their breed or type because the, well intentioned, behaviour of defending these dogs has the knock on effect of making it easier for those who have evil intent in their ownership to own them (it would appear that they too can get the ‘experts’ on their side).
In the article on ‘Red’ Celine found some consolation in the fact that he could never fall into the wrong hands and that is an important consolation to anyone called upon to provide ‘expert’ evidence which leads to a dogs destruction, or even the extreme management conferred by inclusion on the exemption register. It might have been much better if those with an interest in the ‘type’ had realised more often that by defending their dogs so tenaciously they were also making them more vulnerable to misuse.
Any ‘expert’, Kennel Club trained or otherwise, will potentially become involved in signing the “death warrant” and it is very misleading of the Kennel Club to suggest that their ‘experts’ are in some way purely for the ‘defence’ - if they are they are not experts! If they are ‘experts’ the only ways they have of their expertise leading to every dog ‘getting off’, under the current law, are given here.
So, you fortunate ‘experts’ who choose your own cases and let the prosecution be held responsible for the rest do remember that you too brought us to where we are today and you have greater choice about what you are doing than those called upon to enforce the law.
Crazycanine,
Its quite horrific in my opinion that an organisation heavily involved in the world of dogs and legislation regulating that world see fit to continually ignore the dog owning public!
It has been ten days since the first article went up. The Kennel club replied to that article without answering any questions. The Kennel Club supplied a comment for this article and again, did not answer the questions.
As this article was published I contacted the Kennel Club yet again, including a link to this article and stating they are free to comment. I have had no reply and we can see no comment from them to date on this.
They are an unelected group who have decided and shockingly, are accepted, as speaking for you and I. All without asking our opinions or appearing to actually care about what we think!
I personally beleive its time that changed.
Cuthbert,
The Kennel Club have mentioned that these trainees are not experts unless a court deems them to be such. I do hope a dog without an owner isnt said to be “type” by one of the trainees, destroyed on that statement, only for a court to refuse to accept that trainees evidence as an expert at a later date.
Is this possible I wonder? To my mind it is highly possible. Maybe the Kennel club can answer that question too; if they decide to answer at all.
Alison
As I have said in previous posts it is my opinion that the construction of DDA section 1 actually makes it highly unsuitable territory for ‘experts’ as what it requires doesn’t actually fall within any recognised ‘expert’ discipline. A recognised ‘expert’ is only allowed to give expert witness testimony within their own discipline, if they move beyond that they can be challenged in court accordingly e.g. a chartered accountant can give expert testimony on accounts but what he might go on to say about computer programming is not ‘expert’ unless he is also a recognised computer ‘expert’.
The DDA cannot expect ‘expert’ witnesses in the technical sense as it refers to a ‘type’ (not even a breed) and that becomes a matter as much of opinion as of the standards (ADBA conformation) that can be applied as a particular dog may meet and not meet some of those conformation standards and still be ‘type’.
So really ‘expert’ becomes a redundant term and ‘expertise’ (obtained from a variety of sources) is all that can be applied, just like two judges at a Kennel Club show may differ on their opinion of the same dog.
What happens in this situation is that the court by applying an individual witnesses expertise allows them ‘expert’ witness status - which has the significant consequence that they are treated differently to other witnesses in a case, can be present while other evidence is presented etc. I think this court procedure is the way the Kennel Club are looking at it rather than the court giving ‘expert’ status or refusing it.
You only have to look at completed cases to know that courts have accepted both prosecution and defence ‘expert’ identificatons of dogs as PBT or not PBT as ‘right’, with great variation. Not only that but others ‘in dogs’ and the publics understanding too must be taken into account, so, for example, a rescue, even with expertise, may determine for their own reasons that a dog is not Pit Bull Terrier ‘type’ and re-home it as a ‘cross-Staffy’ only for it later to be picked up as ‘type’ by police or local authority when reported by the public, and, the other way round, the police or a local authority may make a decision that a dog is not a PBT ‘type’ and present it for rescue (who are worried that the police or local authority will support that decision should any questions be asked later by the public - especially if the dog does anything) and then a further opinion may decide that it is too risky to proceed with a re-homing and the dog will be destroyed. Both are within my experience.
It is the lack of clarity provided by the law which causes this problem and is the main reason why BSL doesn’t work and, in the case of s1 should be repealled and replaced with effective control managing all dog owners. When the only available evidence becomes less important than the ‘experts’ presenting it something is wrong with the law!
Alison
Am I being too cynical in thinking that the Kennel club shot themselves in the foot by trying to damage limit the bad press about their ‘240 course’. The response from the KC Secretary Ms Kisko rather than settling any doubts or setting matters to rest merely inflames the situation even more. If this course had not been opposed and condemmed by ordinary dog owning people, other animal welfare groups would have held their own versions of it. An example is the ridiculous interference by KCDOG, an unelected body interferring in the business of elected bodies such as local councils. Once they started up, other animal welfare/charity groups started to be critical of dog control orders too. The sad thing is however, that with all the ‘copycat’, or should it be ‘copydog’ positioning to all have their say that it is important for dogs to be exercised off leads on welfare grounds, what about the welfare of any animals chased by dogs off the leads, who is concerned about their welfare? Totally agree that the KC is not in anyway elected to represent or control the actions of dog owners be they owned by pedigree or ‘non’-pedigree dog’s. They really do need to make their mind up about their role/position in society, either they stick to being an elitist and exclusive breed directory, they announce that they are branching out into becoming a dog welfare organisation or they also let us know whether they want to be an enforcement arm for the government. If some kind of dog registration comes in that will be heavily backed by various interested parties to require a microchip as the means of ID, who would benefit from this apart from microchip companies? Lets have a think, hmm, who has a data-base that you have to pay to amend details on? If it was a compulsory requirement to keep the details up to date, this is a form of enforcement, would Petlog/Kennel Club carry out any enforcement action though, doubt it, they would say that it is not anything to do with them, this is the same as other groups who get things enacted by government but expect others to carry out the work. Keep a look out for any welfare groups or organisations pushing for compulsory registration of dogs, whoever they will be, you can bet that there will be a hidden agenda! Odds on favourites though, will be the usual ‘animal welfare’ groups with political lobbyist’s who can afford to waste money on MP’s when the money should be spent helping animals of diverse species! Cuthbert Jacksons posts expose the KC for their failings to understand the real position of ‘experts’ in court. To end on a final note of cynicism, was the ‘240′ an attempt to show that the KC is against BSL, but it backfired on them?
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Cuthbert, i have read your comments and find them to be well informed, panoptic, and balanced, which as in any topic lends credibility. My only fear with regards to your second comment is that one day they will bow to public presure and repeal Sec1. However, the logistical requirements of placing controls on all “dog owners” will be unachievable, and thus the current law, as flawed as it is will be replaced with nothing.
“Good” i hear many of you say. However, i have dealt with many serious dog attacks on people and other animals. Of these i would consider nine to be disfiguring, disabling, or emotionaly damaging to the extent that i would say they are seriously life changing. All of these nine, with one exception, were as a result of an attack by a PBTT dog. This does tend to go against the “deed not breed” ethos, and i trust won’t win me any friends on this forum.