Have I created a monster with this thread Sorry to all, but I'm glad to see there is a lot of civility and thoughts going on.
I would say in the perfect world "It's not the X that does it, its the owner" I think that is actually a very fair statement, as @Paul_B has said a few times, you can make any dog dangerous/aggressive. However as I have said, smaller dogs, although potentially more prone to being gobby little cantankerous ****'s, are less capable of doing real damage to the average person.... additionally, they are not the canine of choice for someone who wants to be an unpleasant ****.
I don't think "ban that dog" is the entire answer to the problem, but to me, in my low expertise on the subject, makes sense as a partial, enforcement and punishment for various other dog crimes is equally important.
I think the knife/gun examples are not the worst ones, they both highlight the flaws in banning weapons, but equally they're understandable, they gave police the power to arrest someone who clearly was not going down to the woods today, purely because they had a style of weapon on them.... there is flexibility in the laws, however what concerns me/us all, is that it's down to the interpretation of the officer as to whether heading into a public woodland with a back pack and a blade is deemed acceptable or not - especially if there is a camping and fire ban in the woodland.. all scary to the carrier who had no intentions or desire or interest in causing upset, hurt or scare anyone.
With todays update on the topic, I must say despite not being keen on the ego dog styles, what concerns me more is the government banning them, then dusting their hands off, patting each other on the back for a job well done and filing that law under ten tons of uselessness that never gets enforced...additionally the law could now open up a huge can of legal worms whereby "yeh, my dog bit someone, but he isn't an XL Bully, he's an XXL bully..." (etc...)
EDIT: Not taking a ban them stance with this comment, but my concern with a lot of these arguments are that they follow the suit of "They shouldn't be banned because I know a _Family style dog_ that's a royal aggressive a-hole"... I wouldn't suggest a dog being banned means you ignore poor behaviour of all other dogs... I think that any badly behaved dogs need their owners to be punished...
I would say in the perfect world "It's not the X that does it, its the owner" I think that is actually a very fair statement, as @Paul_B has said a few times, you can make any dog dangerous/aggressive. However as I have said, smaller dogs, although potentially more prone to being gobby little cantankerous ****'s, are less capable of doing real damage to the average person.... additionally, they are not the canine of choice for someone who wants to be an unpleasant ****.
I don't think "ban that dog" is the entire answer to the problem, but to me, in my low expertise on the subject, makes sense as a partial, enforcement and punishment for various other dog crimes is equally important.
I think the knife/gun examples are not the worst ones, they both highlight the flaws in banning weapons, but equally they're understandable, they gave police the power to arrest someone who clearly was not going down to the woods today, purely because they had a style of weapon on them.... there is flexibility in the laws, however what concerns me/us all, is that it's down to the interpretation of the officer as to whether heading into a public woodland with a back pack and a blade is deemed acceptable or not - especially if there is a camping and fire ban in the woodland.. all scary to the carrier who had no intentions or desire or interest in causing upset, hurt or scare anyone.
With todays update on the topic, I must say despite not being keen on the ego dog styles, what concerns me more is the government banning them, then dusting their hands off, patting each other on the back for a job well done and filing that law under ten tons of uselessness that never gets enforced...additionally the law could now open up a huge can of legal worms whereby "yeh, my dog bit someone, but he isn't an XL Bully, he's an XXL bully..." (etc...)
EDIT: Not taking a ban them stance with this comment, but my concern with a lot of these arguments are that they follow the suit of "They shouldn't be banned because I know a _Family style dog_ that's a royal aggressive a-hole"... I wouldn't suggest a dog being banned means you ignore poor behaviour of all other dogs... I think that any badly behaved dogs need their owners to be punished...
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