Police Dogs Get £225k Home, DDA Dogs Get Screwed
Posted By Ryan O'Meara Date: 28/09 Posted Under: Breed Specific Legislation, Canine Columns, Dangerous Dogs, View From The EditorInnocent until proven guilty, that’s the British way - unless you’re a dog that is.
I’ll stop with the anthropomorphism right there, I know it’s not fair or right to compare dogs and people. But even still, it is people who have chosen to impose a guilty until proven innocent status on dogs of a certain ‘type’.
This week I read that Police dogs and their handlers in the Dyfed Powys police force have a swish new £225,000 home.
Nice. Seriously, I think it’s great that these highly valuable and exceptional animals and their handlers are given the facillities they need to perform the fantastic work they do.
But the news comes to me in a week where I’ve heard yet more stories of dogs being kept in police detention under the flawed 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act, dogs who have done nothing more than share some physical characteristics with the outlawed pit bull terrier type dog, are being forced to live in complete abject misery.
These are dogs who are taken from their owners and locked up. These are dogs that are charged with a crime of looking a certain way but they themselves have no idea what it is they’ve done wrong.
These are dogs which, whether found ‘guilty’ or innocent will often be returned to their owners with their personalities completely changed. Dogs that can often become a shadow of their former selves. Dogs that, I must reiterate, have done absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever.
Once a dog has been seized, surely the very, very minimum an owner can expect is to be looked after and cared for to the very highest standards? But the sad fact remains that many dogs HAVE died in police care. Dogs that never even lived long enough for their owners to argue their case.
So, whilst it is genuinely nice to hear that police dogs have now got a great new place to live and work, please spare a thought for all the dogs currently living in conditions which are having a terrible effect on the dog’s mind and - in some cases - body.
Author DetailsRyan O'Meara is editor-in-chief of K9 Magazine, the lifestyle magazine for dog lovers. He lives in the East Midlands with his own two dogs, Mia and Chloe. - See this author's webpage
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Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 10:27 am and is filed under Breed Specific Legislation, Canine Columns, Dangerous Dogs, View From The Editor. 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.
AN excellent article on the absurdity of custody imposed on the K9 Population by the human population.
As an ex WPC I know of many dogs that have died in custody, some simple strays neglected by officers of Merseyside Police.Thanks for highlighting this issue .
and puppies held in kennels until they are old enough to be measured to determine if they fit the description of a banned ‘type’, how can it be right to lock away a puppy, a whole litter, confined to kennels for months, then to die as banned type or be released, but released having missed out on all that is normal, dda law is an outrage