Come Down Hard on Owners of Dangerous Dogs: Professor

Responding to a recent spate of dog attacks, Massey University professor Kevin Stafford, a vet and owner of three dogs, says the owners of dangerous dogs should be the subject of much more attention from authorities if they insist on keeping their animals.

Speaking to Greg Boyed on Q+A, Professor Stafford said that it was relatively easy to identify the 2-3 per cent of dogs in each community that are dangerous.

“I would suggest that the owners of those dogs should be made very aware that this is a privilege to own these dogs, and they should, one, be encouraged to have the dogs destroyed, but two, if they insist on keeping the dogs, they should be made go to a retraining programme for them and their dogs,” he said.

They should also have to pay three or four times the registration fees that everybody else pays for their dogs. They should be made very aware that they are being given permission to have these dogs, and they should be encouraged, basically, to have them destroyed. We don’t need those dogs in our community.”

Professor Stafford said a New Zealander was killed every four to five years by a dog or dogs, and that ACCC showed dog attacks were on the rise.

END

Here’s the video version: http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/solutions-minimise-dog-attacks-video-6458432

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