Slow Learners...

West Midlands Police is beefing up its dangerous dog unit in response to a 12 per cent increase in attacks and offences in the last year.

Finally! They can start with their call handlers.

And an eye on the costs, too:

Officers are also taking action to speed up enforcement action to slash the £430,000 a year costs of keeping dogs in kennels before destroying them or sending them back to their owner.

Looks like someone has finally realised what I've been saying for a long time.

The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner’s board was also told that while animal cruelty is often seen as a low priority it often an indication of other criminal activity from domestic violence to organised gangs.

 What took them so long?

But offences involving banned fighting dog breeds - including the Japanese Toza, the Pit Bull Terrier - have fallen year on year down from 122 in 2016-17 to 91 last year.

 Why are there still cases? These things were supposed to be eradicated by this law.

Chief Inspector Dawn Miskella said: “Nationally there has been a correlation between organised crime and dangerous dogs offences. We often find we are dealing with dangerous dog type issues when we are dealing with other forms of criminality, for example if we execute a warrant at an address where we’d got drugs intelligence we would often find a certain type of dog at those addresses.”

There's little need for them if you're a law-abiding person, is there?