Zoe Williams on ‘dangerous dog panic’:
… there is a political subtext – as is so often the case – to the presentation of risk here, and it's not just because bulldog breeds are unusually tenacious and have powerful jaws.
Well, Zoe, sweetie, that’s
definitely part of it.
I mean, if my neighbour mistreats his Chihuahua and makes it savage, a well placed kick will send it flying back into next door's garden. Not so with something that looks like a cross between an alligator and an overstuffed sofa…
People talk about "weapon dogs" without needing anything as coarse as evidence that the dog might be used as a weapon – all that really means is a burly staffordshire bull terrier with brass chest furniture in the company of young, ideally black, men.
‘Black’ men..? As her commenters point out, in most areas, this is mainly a white chav phenomenon, or - in a few - a Pakistani one.
But gotta get that ‘racism’ accusation in somewhere, eh, Zoe?
Animal charities often point out how much teenagers benefit from having something to care for, how it bolsters their independence and maturity…
Great! Let ‘em have a poodle, then. No?
Maybe ask yourself why that wouldn't do, eh Zoe?
"Really sociable, healthy dogs do get caught up in it, and there's nothing you can do," said an officer from the West Midlands police dangerous dogs unit, about to kill a beautiful tan pitbull that any dog lover would have rehomed in a heartbeat.
Ah, and here I part company with your later well-founded critiscisms of the DDA; this particular part, harsh as it may seem, was well thought out, because, you see, an animal raised in those conditions, with that initial start in life, will never,
ever be trustworthy. The programme made me grateful no-one has yet invented Smell-O-Vision; most of the people couldn't look after themselves adequately, never mind an animal.
And it prevents soppy, soft-hearted animal lovers taking into their homes an animal that could be Lassie or Rin Tin Tin, or could be Cujo.
No-one really knows.
Because, you see, these aren't inanimate objects like guns, that people like you seem to fear so irrationally. No gun ever loaded itself, left the house by jumping the fence and trotted off down the street to find a random stranger to shoot. And yet,
people like Zoe go out of their minds when someone suggests that giving young people
guns is a way of showing them how to handle responsibility..
These dogs are living things with minds of their own. Not always sane minds, even those
well-bred and well treated, from sensible, responsible breeders.
The law serves no purpose in public protection, has not reduced the number of dog bites, and hasn't even reduced the number of pit bull-type dogs on the streets.
Mainly because there’s been a lack of – if you’ll pardon the pun – teeth? And because while the law was rushed through to grab headlines, no-one actually had the resources or the desire to crack down on then problem…
But this doesn't mean it hasn't had an impact: it has given a legislative framework to neighbours prosecuting grudges against one another.
What?!?
The dogs investigated on Death Row Dogs were local tip-offs, and all the dogs, on examination, were being mistreated by their owners. But a neighbour worried about animal cruelty would have called the RSPCA; the choice of the police as their authority of first resort suggests malice.
No, it suggests that the ‘cruelty’ the neighbour is worried about isn’t that done to the
dog, but that the dog will undoubtedly mete out to any neighbouring cat/small dog/child.
Or even it’s
owner’s child. These things aren’t fussy.
And I wonder if you’d dub it ‘malice’ were a concerned neighbour to report a gun, or racist taunting..?
Furthermore this law has made young people with any bull breed type the legitimate focus of disapprobation – in the London borough of Lewisham, the local paper, the News Shopper, ran a campaign last year to "shop a dog". No incident was required – you just saw one you didn't like the look of and shopped it. It suffices to say that spaniels didn't count.
And if it turned out
not to be a banned breed, it was as safe from seizure as…well, as that spaniel, wasn’t it?
It would never be OK to say: "I'm afraid of young men, especially large groups of them, especially the ones without much money" – so in order to articulate that, these people are broken down into their constituent parts.
Who says it isn’t OK to say that? In most parts of London, it's a necessary survival trait!
It's not them you're afraid of, it's their dogs, or their hoods. And each rationalisation is justified on some generalised pretext – a criminal might wear a hood, ergo hoods suggest criminality; staffs have strong jaws, ergo all staffs are weapons. And that in itself is usually syllogistic – but it also has the effect, in reducing a person to his accessories, of dehumanising the person.
They seem to be doing a bang-up job of ‘dehumanising’
themselves…
Intellectually, it's interesting to watch how prejudice works, the circuitous routes it takes, its iatrogenic consequences. But as the owner of a staffie crossed with a ridgeback, it's not interesting, it's annoying.
Aha! And
now we see part of the reason for her concern.
She is indeed that soppy animal lover who has given a place in her home to an animal cross-bred from two ancient hunting strains, one bred to harass angry bulls, the other to bring to bay African lions. And which, if it turned one day, she'd have no more chance of stopping than a runaway beer lorry.
She’s getting an almighty mauling (
again) in the comments. Someone should really call the RSPCA. Or perhaps get a bucket of water…
