Dangerous Dogs

I declare myself to be a dog lover and the president of the Cheltenham branch of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The situation that we face seems grim. The statistics obtained by my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) show a dramatic rise in hospitalisation resulting from dog bites. In 2002, there were fewer than 3,000 such incidents, but in 2006-07 there were 3,787. The rise in my strategic health authority area in the south-west is even greater: the number of such incidents there has gone up by 53 per cent. in those four years. The RSPCA statistics on calls relating to dog fighting are also dramatic. In 2004, the organisation had 24 such calls. By 2006, the number had risen to 137 and in 2007, the organisation received a staggering 358 calls specifically about dog fighting. Behind those statistics lie some terrifying individual examples, some from my constituency. When I visited Cheltenham Animal Shelter last year, I saw an American pit bull-type dog called Benny. One of the problems with the 1991 Act is that the breeds are often difficult to identify precisely. That dog had attacked a series of other dogs and had left a number of them—possibly as many as four—dead. It had then attacked and badly bitten an owner who had tried to defend his own pet. It proved rather difficult to identify the owner of the dog that attacked the others, but the animal was retained as evidence by the Cheltenham Animal Shelter, apparently while still alive, but it said that if the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute because the case was not strong enough, or if the prosecution failed, the dog would have to go back to the apparent owner, even though the experts at the animal shelter were quite convinced that it was a threat to other animals and to human beings. There was an even more widely publicised case in Cheltenham involving Alfie, an American bulldog cross; again, that is not one of the breeds specified in the Act. The dog was being set on passers-by by people who may or may not have been its owner. It finally hospitalised my constituent, Martin Merenko. The dog was shot, but it had already paid three visits to the Cheltenham Animal Shelter, which was unable to retain the dog because it did not have the power not to return the dog to the owner, as the dog had not, at the time in question, done the requisite amount of damage. However, the animal shelter staff could tell, as experts, that the dog's behaviour was such that it was a danger. As an hon. Member has said, the problem is not just the most extreme cases, but those lower-level incidents that are warning signs and precursors to other attacks. My constituent Derrick Pepperell had to defend his terrified four-year-old granddaughter, Emily, from three fighting dogs in Hatherley park in my constituency. Again, apparently no action could be taken in that case. That was obviously a warning sign that something more dangerous might happen in future. My constituent Sharon Martin wrote to me about her dog being repeatedly attacked. The animal responsible had not at that stage attacked a human being. She said:"““My dog was not the only dog that day to be attacked by the same vicious dog. No-one is coming forward to claim this animal and I have now been told by the police (after many phone calls) that the animal will be destroyed…But there are still more of these animals out there. I see them every day. I alone have paid a ""£400 vet's bill, I dread to think of the other owners' bills. I want to know what you intend to do about these dangerous dogs.””" When I questioned the police about that case, they told me that their practical notes said that"““In a statement of complaint,””" which is apparently what the case was,"““the victim must identify the dog. It is usually necessary for the victim to then identify the dog in the presence of the owner and the investigating officer.””" That is not in the realm of reality. We need drastic reform of the dangerous dogs legislation, and as the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), the RSPCA and the Associate Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare have rightly said, a key factor must be shifting the emphasis from the breed—there is a rather obscure list of breeds that many people have never seen—to the deed. I would take the advice of the Cheltenham Animal Shelter and the RSPCA a step further and reintroduce dog licensing, based on a self-financing microchip scheme.