|
Location: uk
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 1,283
|
|
Originally Posted by
Trouble
DOT is better is your opinion not a fact.
Yes. Do you disagree? Do you feel that BSL is better than the DOT proposal could be?
No don't bother targeting the law breakers, it's easier to have a blanket test for one and all.
I have already explained how the self-policing nature of the DOT frees up the authorities to concentrate their enforcement efforts away from the mainstream and onto the minority of hardcore non-compliants. That is very different to 'not bothering to target the law breakers'.
Recently, the MET police launched a crackdown on suspected illegal dogs during the Notting Hill Festival. Quite a lot of loving family pets where seized. The first one, iirc, was seized early in the morning as the owner was walking the dog out of the area. The owner was concerned that the dog might be distressed at the noise and unusual activity so he was walking it to his mother's house a short distance away where he planned to leave the dog for the day. This was not a dog that had engendered complaint, was not dangerous or involved in any incident. Just a bull breed that looked to a policeman as if it might be of a prohibited type. It will now spend months in kennels being housed and assessed (at taxpayers expense) before most probably being returned to a life on-leash. That is the situation we have at present.
I believe that DOT would be better.
Oh yeah everyone would have to take it, just like everyone has to do everything else in our over regulated lives, except those that never bother and get away with it.
I think the level of non-compliance will be quite small. It's simply not worth not complying. A breeder who supplies a dog to a non-DOTed owner will be running a risk for the rest of that dog's natural life. At any time in the next 10 to fifteen years that owner may be caught and lead the authorities back to the breeder whose breeding will be immediately curtailed by the removal of his SDOT. Similarly a buyer will be presented with a choice of buying from a SDOTed breeder or buying from an illegal supplier and run the risk of being fined. A risk that will be extant for the entire life of the dog. It becomes aligned with self-interest to take the test. It's not that hard and not that expensive - I think most will take it.
many things have been introduced in all areas of our lives, which have never been enforced or simply found to be a complete nonsense, why would this be any different?
Many things have been introduced and worked very well. Would the DOT work very well or be complete nonsense? I think it has the potential to work very well (or I wouldn't support it) but it will need careful preperation. Robust questioning (such as yours) can only benefit the proposal by exposing any flaws or weak areas that might exist. Certainly it is do-able. The Swiss, who have recently introduced a similar scheme, have proved that.
Also if you never have your dog taken away just get fined ad infinitum
and fail to pay the fines, as they do, what is the point.
my emphasis
Failure to pay a fine is a different offence to failure to have a DOT and would be dealt with the same way that non-payment of fines is currently dealt with.
What if you fail the test repeatedly?
If someone fails the test three times that would trigger an automatic assistance visit to determine what the problem is. It could be a language/literacy issue which can be dealt with by offering the test in a different format or it could indicate a deeper problem which absolutely needs addressing before the person could safely offer a home to a dog. It is important to understand that the test is not there to set people up to fail. If someone is repeatedly failing then the emphasis will be to find out why and help to overcome the problem.
How on earth would you keep track of the homeless?
I'm not sure that I'd want to track them. Beyond the fact that their dog must be registered to them I don't see that they need tracking.
Who says you have to use the knowledge gained?
What if you pass and then promptly go back to your old ways of behaviour?
I think it's very patronising to assume people behave the way they do from sheer ignorance, many behave the way they do simply because they can. How will the test stop that?
Patronising? Well you are entitled to a view, of course, but do you imagine that the mother of Archie-Lee knew the risks she was running? There is no doubt in my mind that the dog world encompasses a whole lot of ignorance (a quick glance at the training or behavioural section of any dog website will confirm this and these are people who realise their lack of knowledge and are trying to address it. I assure you that there are yet others who do not even realise that they are missing something).Yes, there will be people who act wrongly in full awareness of their actions and the test will not stop that. But the test will help those who act wrongly out of ignorance or misinformation and that can only be a good thing, surely.
As I have said, I welcome your probing and challenging questions and I will endeavour to answer as best I can but, in fairness, I must ask the same of you or else our conversation is doomed to be nothing but a series of contradictory statements.
Will you tackle the question I posed? Here it is again:
Do you agree that driving standards benefit from the need to pass a test and, if so, why do you feel this would not cross over to dogs?