Sound legislation, responsible canine guardianship and community education form the backbone of any effective community dog bite prevention strategy.
Below is yet another tragic story that comes to us from the Philippines.
The breed involved in this fatal dog bite incident is reported as being a Belgian Malinios, the same breed as the two bitches that we currently own.
With the dog being off leash it really creates 3 very interesting questions about how this could have been prevented:
[pullquote3 quotes=”true” align=”right” cite=”Brad Griggs” citeLink=”www.k9services.com.au/contact-us”]Sound legislation, responsible canine guardianship and community education form the backbone of any effective community dog bite prevention strategy.[/pullquote3]
1 – Where the heck was the owner?
Responsible Canine Guardianship involves training towards (and eventually achieving) a reliable recall under distractions and duress.
When a persons only connection or control of the dog is the leash and collar it is a bad situation.
Equipment failure is a contingency that should be considered an eventuality rather than an unlikely occurrence.
In this instance this very scenario (sans child) is absolutely conceivable and plausible and should have been trained for.
There should also have been an equipment check on the dog. Is the gear in good working condition? Is it fitted correctly?
2 – How did victim behaviour contribute to the picture?
It WAS NOT this child’s fault that this incident occurred based on this report.
We know for A FACT that victim behaviour is the only aspect of an aggressive dog or dog bite incident that we can prepare ourselves, our children and our community for….yet in this country there is almost no heed paid to this understanding.
Education of the whole community is key.
Kids especially need to know how to act during a dog encounter.
Bystanders need to know how to intervene effectively during an aggressive dog incident.
3 – Do dog laws in that area accurately reflect that the owner is absolutely responsible?
We must hold dog owners entirely responsible for the actions of their dogs and engineer an appropriate judicial processes (including well resourced and well trained Animal Management Officers) to properly identify and reflect extraordinary circumstances that may be beyond an individual’s control.
If this is not the centrepiece of any companion animal management and community dog bite prevention strategy then that strategy is doomed to be an abject failure.
The Victorian Government currently subscribes to the type of backward thinking that directly contributes towards dog bite and aggressive dog incidents.
Their focus on using a visual breed identification tests as a model for in depth behavioural evaluation is a prime example of what a poorly researched, scientifically unsupported animal management model looks like.
Lets hope that sooner than later the Victorian public catches on that they are being not only short changed by poor legislation that only serves the politicians, as opposed to protecting the key stakeholder – the community.
You can read the original news story by clicking on this link.
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We just had a local incident, with two dogs attacking a mother and small child. Even worse, it appears they were the family dogs in their back yard, and the dogs had to be shot and killed by the police to stop them. While your comments on owner management and leash control are perfectly valid, even that would now have prevented this one. Apparently, the people simply did not understand the potential issue.
As a contrast, each month I may bring a new dog to the dog park. Most everybody contributes to the dogs learning proper off-leash behavior with other dogs, people, and even children. Some very scared or aggressive dogs are brought there in stages, after first receiving enough training that they are manageable. New people are helped and advised by many of the regulars.
Interestingly, a few people have used this opportunity to educate their children on how to respond to poorly mannered dogs.
However, the total number of regulars at the dog park pales in comparison to the total number of unsocialized and reactive back yard dogs in the community.