Dog Magazine dot net - free online dog magazineby K9 Magazine, the lifestyle magazine for dog lovers

On the 4th of July this year I saw something first hand that had a profound effect on me. Being in or around dogs for my entire adult life, I’ve seen much that I wished I hadn’t. Cruelty, neglect, abuse, ridiculous dog laws, the list could go on. It would be a lie if I said it didn’t all effect me to some degree but in most situations I can try and process the information and deal with it as professionally as my overwhelming passion for dogs will allow me to. But I want to write about an incident now, in September, that happened in July because I wanted to make absolutely 100% sure that it was not my overriding passion for dogs clouding my mood or emotional response to what I witnessed.

Here is the background.

On New Year’s eve last year, an incident happened in a private home which resulted in a little girl suffering a serious injury.

The girl’s mother has been vocal through the press, invited as a special guest to Crufts and has retained a consistent position that her daughter was bitten in the face by a ‘dangerous’ dog. A Rottweiler. This, undoubtedly is a horrible situation for any parent to have to deal with. A truly, truly upsetting occurrence that nobody could possible quantify unless they had been through something similar. To have to worry about whether your child may be permanently scarred as a result of something a dog did, is an unbearable weight.

The day following the incident, the police arrived at the dog owner’s home and advised him that he should voluntarily hand the dog over for examination. He was lead to believe that handing the dog owner would go in his favour should a case reach court. He complied with the advice and watched his dog taken away.

He didn’t have any communication from the police for 11 days.

The dog’s owner has always maintained, right from the initial incident to the first police interview, that his dog did not bite the young girl. It did in fact jump up and injure the girl when his paw caught her in the face, the fleshy part of her cheek.

A case was brought against the owner under the Dogs Act 1871. Note, that is the 1871 act not the much more widely used (and derided) 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act. The reason for this is because the incident occurred on private property.

The aim of the prosecution was to establish whether the dog was dangerous and out of control. Let me stress that as it is a legal issue. The prosecution had to prove not that the dog was dangerously out of control or not just dangerous, it specifically needed to be proven that the dog was both a dangerous dog and out of control at the time of the incident.

The dog’s owner, a former police officer, attended the court hearing 15th April. He had paid for the dog to be independently assessed by a qualified behaviour expert. To state that the dog passed that assessment with flying colours is a vast understatement.

The dog was not only deemed ‘not dangerous’ he was highly praised as a credit to his owner and an exemplary animal in all ways. He was not aggressive at any stage of the rigorous tests he went through - which included being pinched, having his paws squeezed and being lifted up by his ears. The dog’s owner, armed with this report, attended court to learn that the solicitor who would be representing him did not arrive. With no legal representation he - understandably - asked for an adjournment, not feeling equipped or remotely capable of representing himself. The request was refused, the case was heard.

Upon being asked whether he could ‘guarantee’ the dog would never be involved in a similar incident in the future, the dog’s owner, rather naively but nevertheless admirably honestly, advised that as he felt the entire incident was not an act of aggression but a sheer accident, he could not make this guarantee. He was extremely conscious of telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

At that, the judge ordered the dog be destroyed. The judge did not give consideration to the extensive report carried out on the dog by a qualified behaviour expert of more than 58 years experience.

Thanks to the compassion and dedication of the people who work tirelessly to help dog owners stuck in this hellish position, the dog’s owner was given advice and support on where to turn and he was - luckily - able to lodge an appeal.

On July 4th 2008 that appeal was heard at Sheffield Crown Court. I was in attendance as an expert witness and sat through every single word of evidence as well as reading the written submissions and various statements made in relation to this case.

Before a word had been uttered in the body of the case, the dog’s owner pleaded with the prosecution that he would be more than willing to accept a control order, meaning the dog would need to be muzzled and leashed at all times. He was, as is quite easy to empathise with, desperate to do anything to minimise the risk of hearing another judge issue a death order. This plea was rejected by the prosecution.

I must, at this point, clarify why I attended this case. I am a dog trainer and I have a wealth of experience working with many dogs. However, I do not, as a rule, act as an expert witness in dog related court cases as I have made a personal and professional decision to direct my energy in other directions, namely campaigning for repeal of section 1 of the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act. I am asked frequently to act as a witness, 99 times out of 100 I will respectfully decline. This case, was an exception. I’ll explain why.

The evening before the case was to be heard, I became aware of a report written by an animal welfare officer. The report was written specifically in relation to this dog and this case and the animal welfare officer herself was in court to answer questions about the report. It was the content of that report that made me treat this case as an exception. It stunned me. And still does.

The report was written by a local Authority animal welfare office by the name of April Fearn, a representative of the Rottweiler Welfare Association and a Tattoo Marker for the National Dog Tattoo Register. In her report she also cited her authority to examine dogs and owners under the Kennel Club Good Citizen Scheme as a means to support her professional competence in preparing this report.

Ms Fearn’s report asked for the court to consider that the dog, who’s life was on the line having already been issued with a destruction order, should be euthanised. She went on to add that the dog had been given a ‘hard’ name and that the court should consider how the dog could not have learned bite inhibition as it had been removed from its mother at 5-weeks old.

Her report contained a lot of information that I do not want to expand on here as I believe it could distract from the most incredible, stunning and to me sickening aspect that, in her ‘considered’ opinion (she is NOT a dog trainer and doesn’t profes to be one), in her considered opinion this dog IS dangerous and SHOULD be euthanised.

Please read this part real careful. It’s important.

She reached her conclusion that the dog IS dangerous and SHOULD be euthanised having NEVER, not ONCE meeting the dog. She reached a death sentence without laying eyes on the dog and in direct contradiction to two reports carried out by eminent behaviour experts who had both subjected the dog to rigourous testing. Ms Fearn read the reports of these two trainers but STILL concluded the dog should be killed, having never once met him.

Upon hearing of this report, you can probably already guess as to why I considered it exceptional enough to be a witness in this case.

Where do we start?

Well let’s start at the end.

Happily, this story has a positive outcome.

At about 16:00 on July 4th 2008, having listened ONLY to the prosecution case, the judge ordered that the initial death sentence be immediately thrown out and the dog and owner be reunited immediately. No control order, no lectures, no criticism.

The evidence showed, without reservation, that the injuries to the child were consistent with a paw in the face. The evidence showed that this was a well liked, well socialised dog who had never been in any incident of aggression before. The evidence showed that the prosecution had completely and utterly failed to prove that the dog was either dangerous or out of control. What had happened was a plain and simple accident (remember those?).

Furthermore, and I shall quote as best as I can remember, “The court finds that the highwater mark of the prosecution’s case, put forward by their expert witness (April Fearn) actually served more to prove the case for the defence.”

So I am genuinely thrilled that a dog is now back with his owner - after a hellish 8-months of worry, the latter part in the full knowledge that one judge had ordered the dog be killed - however, I still have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, even two months after this sorry episode concluded.

The prosecution made use of an animal welfare officer who is also a Rottweiler breeder and affiliated with a major Rottweiler rescue who saw fit to ask for the dog to be killed having never once seen it. I won’t let that lie.

Justice, in the end, was done. The case for the defence didn’t even have to present evidence. The judge threw the case out having heard only the prosecution’s case which fell flat.

Your and my tax money paid for it all.

And now, who has and who hasn’t dealt with this situation.

April Fearn: Miss Fearn complained to the police when it became known that I would be publishing my account of what happened. The police were placated because I am 100% entitled to publish exactly what I saw and exactly what I read. Simple. You can draw your own conclusion as to why Miss Fearn would not have wanted me to publish my account. The fact is that April Fearn signed a document that recommended a dog be euthanised. She had never met the dog, is not a behaviourist and signed the document even though she knew two eminent behaviourists (who had seen the dog) had found him to be of excellent character. Personally, I can think of no greater disservice than this. It is at the absolute top of the tree when it comes to questionable professional conduct.

The Kennel Club: Miss Fearn cited the Kennel Club’s good citizen scheme and her authority to judge dogs within this well respected scheme as a means to establish her credibility to write the report. We contacted the Kennel Club and asked for their view on the matter and to their absolute credit they acted swiftly, properly and utterly condemned Miss Fearn’s actions without reservation. The Kennel Club were brought in to this sorry case but they acted impeccably when learning what had happened.

The Kennel Club’s secretary Caroline Kisco gave us this statement:

Under no circumstances do we permit those passing the examiner course to use this as a professional qualification in such circumstances as you have advised us of.  When an individual passes the course, they are simply placed on a database of those qualified to carry out GCDS tests at approved clubs.  It certainly does not give them a qualification as an expert witness.

We will also be writing to Ms Fearn to express our disapproval of her actions.

The Rottweiler Welfare Association: They did not return any of our (several) lines of communcation. They offered us no statement, explanation or justification for what had happened. They did remove the name of April Fearn from the home page of their site. They did NOT issue us with any response whatsoever with regard to their position on what had happened. Please, let us remember that the Rottweiler is a breed in trouble. I speak as a Rottweiler owner and I am passionate about the breed, but for this blind euthanasia call to have been made by someone with close connections to a Rottweiler welfare organisation, it adds to the shock. With friends like these, this breed certainly does NOT need any more enemies and boy, it has plenty of enemies.

The National Dog Tattoo Register: Again, we contacted them several times for a statement and got nothing.

For some people, it would appear they would prefer that this whole nasty, unpleasant episode was forgoten, brushed under the carpet and the sordid details kept away from the public. I can quite see why. But how would THEY feel if this was THEIR dog? How would YOU feel if this was YOUR dog? On trial for its life, already been (utterly wrongly) sentenced to death and here you are fighting for his life. You are then faced with the written recommendation by someone who is supposedly a Rottweiler expert that your dog should die. Someone who has never met your dog. Someone has made conclusions about your dog’s name and other matters that were NOT pertinent to the dog’s actual character. How would I feel? That is what I asked myself several times. How would I feel? I’d feel utterly devastated and let down. This is why I agreed to be a witness. In the end I didn’t have to do a single thing other than sit in court. The defence team, lead by Pamela Rose worked through the evidence dillgently and the RIGHT result was had. But this case, to me at least, left the nastiest, most unpleasant taste in my mouth. I ask again, if dogs have supposed friends like these do they really need enemies?

Popularity: 13% [?]