From Free Life, Issue 16, April 1992
ISSN: 0260 5112

So far as the "devil dog" debate goes, there are two undeniable facts. First, there are certain breeds that stand in weight and strength to the commoner breeds as they in turn stand to cats. Second, there are many owners who are unable or unwilling to control their dogs. Each of these in itself would never rise at the most above a nuisance. Together, they make a problem. The attack last May on Rucksana Khan, though shocking, was not unique. During the previous year, in London alone, there had been 500 other attacks, 125 of them by pit bull terriers (Daily Telegraph, 21/5/91). In four out of five cases, a person was seriously injured or an animal killed. There is a problem.

But this is no excuse for muddy thinking. The Government - as ever this century, acting before thought - announced immediate legislation to ban ownership of what are perceived as the more dangerous breeds. The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 was the result. Owners were given a brief period of grace, and then were required to arrange for the destruction or export of their dogs. Thereafter, possession became a criminal offence. The Bill was hurried thorugh its stages, the Opposition having promised its support. As is always the case, though, haste in Parliament, joined with unanimity, solved a problem far less than it raised or contributed to others.

For the Act proceeds from that most unreasonable of modern beliefs, that risk can be abolished. For many of us, it is no longer enough to expect others to behave with all due care and attention, and to encourage them in this by setting reasonable levels of civil and criminal liability. Everything must be made safe. Whatever is shown to be unsafe needs the magic wand of legislation waved over it. To quote from The Sun on the Hillsborough disaster - "After the tears and the disbelief, comes the anger". The cry is always that "something must be done".

The world, of course, is an uncertain place, filled with accidents and other misfortunes. No laws will ever be devised to prevent these, nor often to diminish them but at an exorbitant cost. We saw this after The Herald of Free Enterprise went down in 1987. The public demanded and got the most extraordinary new precautions from the ferry companies. In consequence, crossing the Channel became both more expensive and less enjoyable. The recent prohibition of fighting dogs were imposed has illustrated the same rule. The costs here have been unworkability and inherent badness.

In the first place, it is hard, and perhaps impossible, to give a legal definition to the proscribed breeds. The most determined effort went into the enforcement of the South African apardheid laws. Never in their history were consistent means found of deciding who fell into which racial group. No such effort would be made in this country for the sorting of dogs. But exactly the same kind of problems would arise. What, after all, is a "devil dog"? Is it a half pit bull terrier crossed with a labrador, or a one quarter crossed with an alsation? Is it of a certain weight, or its teeth of a certain size? Or is this to be a matter to be decided by some State official "taking into account all the attendant circumstances"? A prohibition could only be made workable by giving arbitrary powers to those enforcing it.

In fact, of course, the law has not so far been enforced with any consistency. There have been prosecutions. But, following a few months of keeping their dogs indoors, most owners seem to have taken to walking them in the parks again, causing neither more nor less nuisance to the public than before the law was made.

This, however, is beside the point, what enforcement has been made has constituted - and inevitably must constitute - prior restraint, which is the antithesis of our traditional rule of law.

There are two means of protecting life and property. The first is to wait until someone attacks them, then catch and punish him. The purpose is to prevent him from repeating his offence, his example being a warning to others - or, if a civil matter, to compensate his victim. The second is to keep people from harming each other by limiting their means of doing so. The first, if harsh, is a limited method. It involves a known use of power, bearing only on criminals and leaving the rest of us free to go about our business. The second, though apparently more humane, needs the most constant and unwelcome State supervision.

The prohibition of fighting dogs comes firmly within this second category. It represents a total disbelief in individual responsibility. Tens of thousands of owners, who have never once allowed their dogs so much as to approach, let alone attack, another person, have been branded as potentially negligent and punished by confiscation of property - or, to put it another way, by the loss of beloved friends. Is there any object so good, so unattainable by other means, that we must fall to governing people as if they were children or lunatics?

The opponents of a supposedly risk-eliminating law are usually condemned as cold-hearted. But Acts of Parliament are important things. Some of them may confer benefits. But all impose costs. These ought always to be investigated and assessed. Otherwise, far too often, will the wrong balance be struck. In this instance, if what I say above is right, the present law should on first proposal have received the closest, coldest scrutiny. It simply was not enough, as I heard said at the time, that "one bitten child is worth a dozen arguments". It is not.