Living With Dogs (19 page)

Once a decision has been made that a dog has lost all its quality of life, the dog must be put down without delay. The wise owner will have held a conference with all family members involved in the decision, so that everyone is well aware of the situation. When the time comes, all these people should attend the veterinary surgeon with the dog, and be physically present in some way, holding the dog when the injection is given.

It’s a matter of personal choice whether the dog is buried at home, or left with the vet to be disposed of by burial or cremation. I have always believed that burying dogs in the back yard has often delayed the ending of a mourning period, and the act of replacement with a new dog. It can also lead to emotional problems if the dog’s remains have to be left behind if the home is sold. A mourning period is essential to the recovery after the loss of the dog, because it enables one’s memory of the dog to be put in to perspective, and it permits the ownership of a new dog.

Ensuring the dog has a dignified death is the final part of the contract of responsibility which the owner enters into when he first purchases the dog. We’ve domesticated all these animals, we’ve brought them into the world, we’ve purchased them, and we have an obligation to look after them, right up to and including their death.

Dog ownership was never a problem 40 years ago; we fed them; we took them for walks; we brought them home; and we did it all without aggravation. Today dogs have become a major issue, and the community is divided between the dog lobby and the anti-dog lobby. The force of the law now hovers above dog owners who take their dog for a walk in the park without a leash. What has happened since the early 1960s?

The answer is that we have far more dogs and we have changed as a community, and in the way we keep our dogs. When I began practising as a vet in Balwyn in 1965 there wasn’t another veterinary practice for another 20 kilometres in the direction of Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs. Today, in response to the growing numbers of dogs, there are veterinary practices all over the place.

Lifestyles have changed since 1965 when Mum was always home to look after the dog. Today we have moved into the gentrified inner-city areas, with backyards the size of a postage stamp, and Mum has gone out to work, leaving the dog all alone. The stresses and isolation of modern life can cause people to want the comfort of a dog more than ever, but even though we only have enough space to keep a Chihuahua, we buy a Cattle Dog or a Rottweiler, because they are fashionable. Then we find that they bark from separation anxiety when we leave to go to work, or they snarl at someone in the park. The council ranger gets called, and suddenly the dog becomes an issue involving the law. The dog gets blamed, but the dog hasn’t changed in the past 40 years; we’re the ones who’ve changed.

Dog owners only have themselves to blame. They have bought the wrong type of dog, confined them in inappropriate urban settings, and failed to give them proper training and socialisation. The resulting problems of roaming, barking and dog attacks have left governments with little alternative but to produce a more comprehensive dog legislation. The law will always respond when an overwhelming need for action arises, as it has done with dog ownership.

There is no lack of evidence of problems associated with dogs. With increasing regularity we are reading the newspaper headline ‘Dog Mauls Boy In Park’. The owner may always forgive the misbehaviour of their dog, but when private failings turn to public terror, the law will not exhibit the same indulgence to owner and animal.

In 1988 the Victorian Parliament was told that there had been 6000 reported incidents involving humans or other animals being bitten by dogs during the course of the previous year. These attacks ranged from surface scratches to severe maulings requiring hospitalisation and surgery. Evidence from police, local councils and hospitals suggests that the level of these incidents has been consistent over the period 1987–2010, with reported dog bites rising by 10 per cent per annum.

Though there have been numerous cases since, I distinctly recall an incident that was reported on the front page of the
Sunday Age
on 21 May 1995. It involved the common elements of a young child, an apparently irresponsible owner, and a breed of dog with an instinctive tendency to attack if uncontrolled. An eight-year-old schoolboy had been playing in a park in South Yarra, accompanied by an adult after-school assistant, when he was mauled by an English Bull Terrier. The newspaper reported that the attack came after the 21-year-old owner of the dog let the animal off the leash for exercise, despite the fact that there were signs in the park requiring dogs to be kept on leashes at all times. The dog then went up to a group of school children which included the eight-year-old boy. The police officer handling the case said, ‘The kids were playing with the dog but the boy got scared. He screamed and ran away and then the dog, it seems, has chased and mauled him.’

The boy recovered after undergoing surgery. The owner of the Bull Terrier was charged with two offences under the 1970 Dog Act.

A few days after that case was reported I was notified of another attack involving a Bull Terrier, this time on a Jack Russell. The Bull Terrier had been muzzled, but when it saw the other dog in a Melbourne park, it charged over and attacked the animal. The dog’s muzzle came off in the attack, and the Jack Russell suffered injuries requiring over $350 worth of veterinary treatment. When the melee had died down the Bull Terrier’s owner appeared, carrying the animal’s lead.

I regard it as the height of irresponsibility to let a dog off the lead when the owner knows the animal is violent, even if the owner has placed a muzzle on the dog to curb its aggression. I believe the dog problem won’t be solved until you crack down on owners.

The off-leash dog has become more and more of a problem with other dogs and humans. The ideal dog is under voice control, but in practice, very few dogs are under this type of control, despite what their owners think. Few dogs can resist responding to their basic instincts, and even fewer will resist being distracted by another animal. Even the best voice-controlled dog will find it almost impossible to resist chasing a cat or a fluffy dog.

Australia has a continuing problem with irresponsible dog owners who refuse to accept that they have a social responsibility to ensure that their dog behaves. Owners are blind to the anti-social behaviour of their dog, just as parents are often blind to the faults of their children, and they won’t face up to the fact that as soon as the dog is away from them, and is stimulated by humans or other animals, it bites and becomes uncontrollable. There is a tendency in humans not to want to admit their mistakes, and in this case owners don’t like to admit they bought the wrong breed, or failed to train the dog properly. It is all part of the denial process: their dog could never have done what the neighbour or the person on the walk said it did.

If you are threatened with a dog attack, remember that movement and sound will aggravate a dog which is already excited and proposing to attack. The first thing you must do is come to an absolute halt, and ensure that you are not waving things around — especially an arm or a hand. Remain utterly silent, even if you feel like screaming. Do not stare at the dog. The dog suddenly finds it has nothing to chase, and it will quickly lose interest and will wander off.

Certain breeds are genetically predisposed to aggressive behaviour because of the role they were bred for, and owners should beware that if you switch on the trigger in these animals, they become fighting machines. German Shepherds, Bull Terriers, Dobermanns, Rottweilers and Cattle Dogs consistently appear in reports on dog attacks prepared by local municipalities and health organisations. The old theory was that German Shepherds had to be muzzled because they were savage dogs, and that if they mated with Dingoes it would produce a super-killer of sheep. Until quite recently Western Australia had a regulation that only desexed German Shepherds could enter the state.

A 1991 study by the South Australian Health Commission indicated that German Shepherds, Bull Terriers, Dobermanns, Rottweilers, Cattle Dogs and Collies were responsible for 73 per cent of attacks on adults and children. Another 1991 study, done by rangers from the Melbourne suburb of Frankston, concluded that there were four main types of dog attacks: Cattle Dogs (or Blue Heelers as they are commonly known) were often involved in actual biting attacks; German Shepherds, Dobermanns and Rottweilers featured in rushing attacks; Bull Terriers were generally involved in attacks on other dogs, or cats; and smaller dogs tended to ‘nip’ out of fear or excitement.

The most recent study (2005–2007) of dog bite attacks on adults and children prepared by the Victorian Injury Surveillance System confirmed the fact that many attacks, 80 per cent, occur in the dog’s own home, and frequently on children under the age of five. This was also confirmed by the study of 1093 dog bite injuries to children attending three Melbourne hospitals between 1989 and 1993 which found that 43 per cent of these injuries occurred to toddlers under five, and the most frequent location was outdoors at home.

The extent of the problem was indicated by research conducted in 1992 by the Monash University Accident Research Centre. It found that dog bites to children aged between one and four were a more frequent cause of hospital admission (37 cases per 100,000 people) than either motor vehicle accidents (28 per 100,000) or child maltreatment (12 per 100,000).

The research is consistent: children are more likely to be bitten by their own dog at home, rather than by a strange dog elsewhere, and effort should be put into education for families and children on how to handle dogs.

The main reason children under five get bitten is that they have no fear of dogs, because no-one has taught them the warning signs that a dog is upset and will bite. Invariably the dog is known to the child, who doesn’t recognise that the dog has had enough. The animal will growl, and once it has snarled, baring its teeth, it will bite without further warning. Plenty of time is given to educating children on ‘stranger danger’, but almost none to dog behaviour, and it’s because adults don’t understand ‘dog speak’ and the dangers posed by dogs, especially their own.

The Victorian Injury Surveillance System report goes so far as to advocate that people with young children should avoid owning dogs, particularly dangerous breeds. The 1993 Australian Bureau of Statistics home safety survey, which found that 35 per cent of households with young children have dogs, also suggested that families should delay acquiring a dog while the children were under the age of seven.

Nonetheless, despite all of this knowledge about the cause of dog bites and the wide dissemination of this knowledge in the media and through primary schools, I was shocked to learn that in 2009 nine people a week were admitted to Victorian hospitals suffering serious dog bite wounds.

Apart from Queensland, where dog laws are enacted and controlled by local government, all Australian states have a Dog Act, or similar legislation, which specifies how a dog should be kept and controlled. The Act requires that the dog be registered; that it be kept within the owner’s property; that it be kept under control when it leaves the owner’s property; and that it should not attack humans or other animals.

The Act, which is enforced by local government, is generally perceived as the community’s defence against dangerous or troublesome dogs, but it was originally conceived as a way of providing the dog with legal rights. Prior to the Dog Act, dogs were treated as chattels, with no rights, and the new law recognised the dog as a legal entity and set standards for the ownership and control of dogs.

Registration is the key to the Dog Act, and once an animal is registered it is protected by the provisions of the Act, and local municipalities are compelled to return it to the owner, should it become lost or separated. The Act imposes a double requirement on the owner to identify the dog. Firstly, it must be registered with the local municipality, but secondly, the dog must carry a marker with the name and address of the owner.

Routine surveys of impounded dogs at this time revealed that no more than 5 per cent of animals were identified according to the law. Owners were registering their dog with the local council, but then they failed to attach either the council’s registration marker, or the dog’s identity tag.

These tags were the only device we had to connect a dog with its owner. When a dog is hit by a car and suffers a broken leg, and it’s brought to me without identity, who do I turn to for permission to go ahead and treat the animal? As a vet, I’m required by the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act to relieve the dog’s suffering by putting its leg in a splint, but that’s as far as I can go without the owner’s permission. Often it can take days to find the owner.

Equally frustrating for the RSPCA was the knowledge that most dogs entering its shelters were in reality owned, but without an identity tag that owner could not be traced.

Murphy’s Law operates with dogs. They will get out, despite all the gates and fences you put in their way, and it’s a frequent cause of owner distress and dog distress, because the dog doesn’t want to be in the pound. It’s very depressing when you’re running a shelter, and day after day dogs come in with absolutely no identification. All you can do is pray, and hope the owner comes to the pound. If someone is dumping a dog, they will remove all identification, but it’s obvious that many dogs who come in are owned.

The development of microchip identification for dogs has dramatically assisted with solving the problem of the unidentified dog. A microchip is inserted under the skin over the left shoulder blade. It contains a unique set of letters and numbers that permanently identifies the dog and these can be read by an electronic scanner which all pound and shelter managers and veterinarians possess. After a period of encouraging dog owners to voluntarily microchip their dogs, legislation was introduced in 2005 making it compulsory for all breeders to microchip puppies prior to sale. At this time microchipping is in addition to the requirement for all dogs to wear their registration marker and owner contact details attached to their collar.