Controlling Dogs... : Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:37 pm  

Well the controlling cat thread is heading this way so we may as well have a separate topic for it...

Following the death of the poor young girl in Wigan yesterday I've listened to a litany of kneejerk opinions on the radio today, hardly any of which have been based on practicality and most of which were based on banning something that can't be defined.

Let me lay my cards on the table first and give one idea that may be helpful...

In the past thirty years I have personally owned four dogs, one at a time, three German Shepherds and a Golden Retriever, our first GSD was a bitch and she was safe enough for me to be comfortable to have her around when we brought our two baby daughters home from hospital, my kids grew up with her, they learned to walk by pulling themselves up on clumps of her skin & fur, she never showed a second of aggression but she was very vocal when anyone came to the door, the important thing being that she was not an alpha dog and would step aside when told to.

The second GSD was also a bitch but was uncontrollable, I'm not sure that she was mentally stable at all and we had her put to sleep at about 18 months as she was starting to be a very aggressive dog.

The Golden Retriever was a "complete" male and was, well, a Golden Retriever, totally placid and submissive to anyone, our vet once told me that he was coming across more and more aggressive Golden Retrievers and his fear was that a local breeder somewhere was doing this deliberately.

Our current GSD is approximately three years old, we adopted him from the Dogs Trust when he was 18 months old after he was picked up as a stray, he had been trained and obviously cared for and then for some reason thrown out onto the streets, more likely as I suspect he was tied to something and left as he has anxieties about being tethered now, at three year of age he is very obedient, not aggressive, has been taught by us not to bark at visitors or deliveries to the house and is a great example of the breed.

But here is the important bit - he was abandoned when, in dog terms, he was a teenager and would be in the phase that dogs go through where they are trying to establish the hierarchy in the family, a "teenage" dog will push the boundaries every day until they are happy that they know where they stand, if you have any sense at all then you'll make sure he knows that its at the bottom rung of the ladder - but at this age our dog was thrown out of a family and we don't know why but it is possible that he was starting to show some aggression, its possible.

Because he came from the Dogs Trust he was neutered by castration and its possible that that is why he is now so calm and a placid male dog - and thats the important point.

No licensing scheme, no chipping scheme, no owners training scheme, will ever suppress the natural instinct of a dog in a family setting, he or she (remember we had one terrible female) will have instincts to defend itself and its family and those instincts are magnified the more dogs there are in the house.

So, compulsory castration for male dogs - it would solve the unfetered, uncontrolled breeding that is so often bringing bad traits back into a dogs behaviour, would result in a much calmer male dog less likely to incidents of aggression and as a by-product would prevent testicular cancer which is as prevalent in male dogs as is mammary cancer in female dogs.

Re: Controlling Dogs... : Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:44 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

So, compulsory castration for male dogs - it would solve the unfetered, uncontrolled breeding that is so often bringing bad traits back into a dogs behaviour, would result in a much calmer male dog less likely to incidents of aggression and as a by-product would prevent testicular cancer which is as prevalent in male dogs as is mammary cancer in female dogs.

Problem is, where will the next lot of dogs come from?

Re: Controlling Dogs... : Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:51 pm  

Its simply way too easy for people to go out and buy a dog.

I don't know a lot about dogs but I enter a lot of properties (through work) in the Wigan borough (including Atherton) and sadly I am more suprised that the incident that occured earlier this week does not happen more often.

The amount of people that own these kind of dogs seems very common in the areas that I work and these tend to be in the more deprived areas of the borough, its not unusual for one house to have more than one dog (and more than one animal) and sadly the dogs are often left cooked up for days without being taken for regular exercise.

I have no issue at all with responsible dog owners but many dogs seem to be bought to help to give off some kind of macho image (why is it always the same breeds of dogs generally involved in these incidents?).

Re: Controlling Dogs... : Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:53 pm  

wigan_rlfc wrote:

Problem is, where will the next lot of dogs come from?

From registered breeders, which is how it should be, they don't have to be Kennel Club breeds (I detest that society) but they certainly won't be from the house down the street who's bitch has a litter every year because it makes a quick £1000 and pays for a holiday for them whether or not they are breeding in bad traits or breeding out good ones (because they don't really care).

Most of the Dogs Trust shelters rehome around 1000 dogs per year, some more, and for the past few years the population of those centres have been mainly bull terrier breeds and inter-breeds, and Jack Russells - take a look at any of them online - thats caused not by the puppy farming that rightly got a bad press a few years ago but by indiscriminate breeding from individuals who know that if they advertise a litter of "staffie" pups then they'll shift the lot on in days and make a few hundred quid for themselves and bollox to what they're doing to the breed or to rescue centres that pick up those same dogs a few months later.

Re: Controlling Dogs... : Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:06 pm  

dany1979 wrote:

Its simply way too easy for people to go out and buy a dog.

I don't know a lot about dogs but I enter a lot of properties (through work) in the Wigan borough (including Atherton) and sadly I am more suprised that the incident that occured earlier this week does not happen more often.

The amount of people that own these kind of dogs seems very common in the areas that I work and these tend to be in the more deprived areas of the borough, its not unusual for one house to have more than one dog (and more than one animal) and sadly the dogs are often left cooked up for days without being taken for regular exercise.

I have no issue at all with responsible dog owners but many dogs seem to be bought to help to give off some kind of macho image (why is it always the same breeds of dogs generally involved in these incidents?).

Are you a burglar?

Re: Controlling Dogs... : Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:08 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

Are you a burglar?

Not brave enough

Re: Controlling Dogs... : Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:12 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

<snip(sic)>

Why didn't you have your retreiver de-nadded if you feel so strongly about male castration?

My dog's whole and will probably remain so. Apart from the fact I couldn't take him to the vet to have a procedure I wouldn't wish on myself, my mate has a big soft labrador who, since having his balls off, now barks at anything and everything that moves. Something he never did while he still had his goolies

Re: Controlling Dogs... : Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:34 pm  

Our dog is soft as sh**e and is great with our grandchildren, but we wouldn't dream of leaving him alone with them. If the boys tease him he can only respond in one way, so we don't risk it.

One of my favourite line in Drop the Dead Donkey, when trying to identify what is a dangerous dog:
"If it has short legs, broad shoulders, and an aggressive temperament, the dog it owns will be a pit-bull!"

Re: Controlling Dogs... : Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:41 pm  

What they should do is have a cull of the chav owners. That way no one would ever want one of the aggressive, macho-cult status symbol breeds that are usually responsible for maulings.

If they won't do that, then simply eradicating the breeds is the way to go. They were bred for their aggression and fighting prowess so it doesn't matter if someone has a nice one, you can have 'nice' tigers who could be trained to walk passively on a lead and act happy and playful around young children

Re: Controlling Dogs... : Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:57 pm  

not all staffies are "devil dogs" .
one near us is owned by a lady in her 70s. he s a great friendly dog , my molly, collie cross is more aggressive than he is
He s a ginger colour and called BIX...........
the most aggressive dog weve encountered since we ve had molly ( nearly 7 years) was a huge male chocolate labrador and a female rottie that attacked molly and she got up and beat the living daylights out of the rottie.the choc lab won against molly but she wasnt injured just shook up.