The deplorable death of a child in Liverpool should cause us all to examine our attitude to dogs.
When I lived in Iceland the authorities and citizens had what I thought was an intelligent and appropriate attitude to the place of dogs in society. Dogs of any breed were not allowed in urban areas. They were confined to the countryside as work dogs who assisted shepherds in the control and movement of sheep.
Their exclusion from urban centres meant that there was no excrement on pavements or in parks or public open areas and there was no killing of children. As in so many other ways we can benefit from how other countries handle problems.
We really need to make our minds up whether children are more important than animals.
1 comment:
Personally this is one of the very few examples of where I would like to see much greater regulation and I am afraid a very much less Liberal approach as some pet owners are just not exercising any social responsibility; I would like to see every dog chipped and every owner to be required to have a statutory dog licence.
If owners fail to look after their dogs and control them properly they should be destroyed and the owners fined. Without these measures, I fear that some dogs will continue to cause nuisance and occassionally severe physical harm or even death to third-parties.
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