Sep
A Dog Put to Sleep Every 80 Minutes in the UK – But Clarissa Baldwin is Wrong
The Dogs Trust annual stray dog report states that nearly 100,000 dogs were picked up by local authorities last year with 6,710 of those dogs put to sleep.
There may be some debate about the figures if history is anything to go by. But whatever the figures, I’d like to talk about something else which has arisen from this report.
Clarissa Baldwin, chief executive of the Dogs Trust said:
“The number of dogs put to sleep is really quite horrendous. We are a nation of dog lovers and we are better than a lot of countries, but we should be doing more to lead the way.
“Dog ownership is a privilege, not a right.“
This is wrong. Dead wrong. The fact is, in the United Kingdom dog ownership IS a right. It SHOULD be a privilege but it IS a right.
Who or what stops anyone getting a dog any time? The government? No. The puppy farmers who are happy to supply anyone who has the cash? No. The breeders who frequently sell incompatible dogs to people who end up turning those dogs in to shelters months down the line? No.
To say that dog ownership IS a privilege not a right is wholly incorrect. What she should have said, and I for one would have agreed with it 100% is that dog ownership SHOULD be a privilege not a right. But the fact is, it is not a privilege, it is a right.
Earlier this year the Dogs Trust blog reported the fact that Switzerland had introduced new pet ownership laws which require would-be dog owners to undergo a test before being allowed to own a dog. You can read the report here. But let us look at this:
Dogs Trust Chief Executive Clarissa Baldwin:
What the Swiss are advocating has some merits but it is too draconian in our view. Dogs bring many benefits to a variety of people including the most vulnerable in society who may not be able to pass exams and theory tests could be considered exclusive. We believe everyone should be able to enjoy the companionship of a dog as long as they do look after it properly.
(Emphasis added by me)
This seems incompatible with ‘privilege’. Looking after the dog should be a statutory, a given, a basic, it is not a correlation to the ‘privilege’ of owning a dog. Privileges, usually, are earned not just given as a basic right, or they are by definition not a privilege at all.
So this leads me to ask – why should anyone, be they the Dogs Trust, me, you, the general population of the United Kingdom – expect a single thing to change on the issue of animal welfare standards, dog abandonments or rising animal cruelty figures if we continue to do the same things year in, year out? Why? Isn’t that the very definition of madness, to do the same things over and over and expect different results?
Think about it, if we follow that logic what we are saying is that EVERYONE can get a dog but it is only if the dog then fails to receive the adequate levels of care, it will be removed. But surely that solves nothing? Surely that means that the dog ends up as another stat, looking for another home and is another dog in the system?
Dog ownership in the UK SHOULD be a privilege, not a right. The fact is, it is not. The UK should adopt a Dog Ownership Suitability Test, the fact is though we haven’t and if the major players in the animal welfare world maintain the view that everyone should be allowed to own a dog provided they look after it, we will not solve any of these problems at all.
Preventative measures which do not say ‘everyone should be allowed to have a dog’ would have an impact, they would stop the ‘wrong’ people from being able to get a dog and they would mean we could proudly say ‘In the UK, dog ownership is a privilege, not a right’. As we are today, nothing could be further from the truth.
Clarissa Baldwin’s comment has diluted the message of the 2008 report.
Is a dog destroyed EVERY 80 minutes of any 24 hour period, 365 days of the year?
As sad as it is, what is the actual percentage out of ‘nearly’ 100,000 dogs?
Surely the number of strays is falling as well as the number of dogs PTS.
Are councils getting the blame again, organisations such as DT could possibly help councils more but they do not.
Rather than blame councils, why not use the DT’s own political lobbying group to get better resources for councils would be a step in the right direction?
The Dogs Trust annual stray dog report states that nearly 100,000 dogs were picked up by local authorities last year with 6,710 of those dogs put to sleep.
How many Irish stray dogs were the Dogs Trust and partners importing to the UK, for rehoming here, in the same year?
of the 6710 put to sleep i think over 4ooo were pts in northern irish pounds, in my town wit a population of approx twenty thousand people we put down more dogs than london pounds, im ashamed. i work in an animal sanctuary in northern ireland and we regularly send dogs across to england for rehoming,if we didn’t the numbers pts would be even higher.
Hi Neil
Amazing figures, if over 4,000 dogs PTS were from Northern Ireland then 2,710 dogs for the whole of the other constituent countries of the UK is not high although it is still 2,710 too many considering the population of the other three home countries.
You deserve a medal working in animal welfare in NI, just why are there so many dogs in NI?