May 8, 2010Comments are closed.dogs, resistance
Both the RSPCA Victoria, and The Lost Dogs Home Victoria have in 2010, been driving the idea of a ‘dog ownership test’ and licencing system. It seems like a great idea; not everybody should have a dog, so to have a dog you should have to acquire a licence.
Not dog licences, like we already have, but something more. A permit that determines whether or not you are suitable to be a pet owner, through a short test. Like a car licence. Yeah!
Except. There are just two reasons for licencing dog owners: to protect dogs from people and to protect people from dogs.
It’s quite seductive to think we can protect pets from falling into the ‘wrong’ hands through a dog owner licencing system. However, you would have to assume a dog licence can be issued to anyone without a history of animal abuse. Given that millions of Australians are going to want one of these licences and only a handful are animal abusers, the number of refusals on the basis of history will be tiny. They’ll be easier to get than a pie at an AFL game.
But! I can hear you saying. We can revoke the licence if people abuse, or don’t care adequately for their dog.
Existing animal welfare laws state you can’t injure or neglect your pet, so the licence is essentially a reaffirmation of the laws we already have. Cruelty convictions and pet ownership bans are already tools that can be used to protect companion animals. You may argue that they don’t go far enough (and you may be right) but a pet ownership licence doesn’t offer additional benefit, not already provided by existing legislation.
Sounds like a very noble reason for pet ownership licencing. I mean, if we had a pet ownership licence, people would be forced to;
– ‘socialise their dog’ – wrong. It can only specify they exercise or train them, neither of which given the owner the skills or motivation to do either appropriately.
– ‘keep their dog from roaming & hurting strangers’ – wrong. There is ALREADY a requirement that dogs are contained and incidents still happen and they often happen in the home.
– ‘stop their dog mauling the kids’ – wrong. A pet licence does little to promote safe interactions between child and dog, nor does it help dog breeders choose behaviourally safe, tolerant and well-balanced breeding stock.
There are lots of things that reduce dog bites in the community. Issuing people with a small piece of plastic, ain’t one of them.
What advocates for these ideas claims, is that if there was a dog ownership ‘test’ associated with the issue of these licences, problems like these could all be addressed You know, like having a car licence. How it makes us all great drivers… *snort*
Ok, well consider this:
Each year in Australia, over 1,000 people DIED in car accidents. That’s nearly 3 per day.
The annual economic cost of road crashes is conservatively estimated at $18 billion per annum.
Australia has a canine population of about 4 million and over 40% of homes have a dog. However, fatalities are rare (less than one a year nationally) and just 1,400 people have injuries that are serious enough to send them to hospital. I say ‘just’ because the number of people hospitalised each year from tripping over – 18,970. While 1,439 people are hospitalised from ‘trampoline’ related incidents.
It’s really easy to let the emotiveness of dog attacks, distort the true nature of the issue. The solution we’re looking at, conceivably costs and is implemented like a car licencing scheme, but the difference between the risks to the public from dogs vs the risks to people from cars is so enormous as to not even be comparable.
And don’t forget, we’re not just talking about issuing licence renewals and testing, but some kind of enforcement model. It’s not the short test you sit when you’re attempting to get your licence that makes you a good driver – most people when asked, can identify a ‘Stop’ sign – just like, when asked, most people could identify that dogs should eat ‘at least once a day’.
The strength of car licences comes from on-road practice and incremental enforcement of the road rules. You run a red light and a fine shows up in your letter box. Speed and a policeman will stop you to have a chat. Wobble about in your lanes or cut someone off and your peers will let you know how they feel about your transgression.
A constant and consistent feedback loop, until (hopefully!), you can drive safely. And while the road safety model costs billions to enforce, a pet ownership licence could offer nothing like this. So just how would it be executed?
Well, we’re not going to have billions in funding, not even close. So we’re going to need to take some short cuts.
Dog breed profiling: is perceived as a quick and easy way to remove a risk to the public. Unfortunately, in practice as we’ve seen, it does little to reduce the actual factors leading to dog bites.
Owner profiling: the kind of profiling that these kinds of test require, simply wouldn’t be permissible in the ‘real world’. Do we take the large breed dogs off all the young men, simply because they’re the most likely to be deemed by the public as ‘menacing’? How about the mum with small kids – would she be refused a dog licence, for being deemed as being in a ‘high risk’ category?
So much grey area and so much potential for abuse. This licence won’t protect people or pets, but it would definitely give expanded powers to animal welfare groups to deem certain segments of the community as unworthy of a pet and seize animals who’ve done nothing wrong.
There are questions for everyone should they actually implement this kind of program, regardless of how experienced you are, or if you’ve never had a pet related fine issued in your life. How would you personally feel about regular pet welfare check ups? What if the advice they mandated was in conflict with your personal pet care beliefs? Or didn’t suit your individual animal? When does the will of animal welfare groups, override your rights as an owner to make decisions with the assistance of your chosen vet and trainer?
Most people do a perfectly reasonable job raising and caring for their dogs. Licencing everyone to try and effect a tiny percentage of ‘irresponsible’ people is an enormous waste of resources, that could be put towards proactive networks and services for dog owners and providing support in helping make good pet care choices.
