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Location: uk
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 1,283
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Originally Posted by
Trouble
I have to say I really think step 1 is a load of old tosh, having a certificate is no proof of anything,
I think there's two aspects to this:
Firstly there's the inconvenience of applying for and sitting the test itself. I personally beleive that this will immediately deter a large number of the least commited owners. I have seen too often dogs change hands for the cost of a pint or less. Casual or impulsive acquisition by people who have little idea of the commitment they are taking on. I have seen dogs used to settle drug debts and then sold on for whatever the new owner can realise for the dog before the day is out. I have heard of dogs being sold to children and then becoming homeless as soon as the parents find out. My mother once bought a puppy because someone had just wolf-whistled at her and she'd wished she had a big dog to set upon them - what sort of a reason was that!?!?
So I think the test itself, regardless of difficulty, will serve as a filter for the least committed and a cool-off period for the most impulsive and at a stroke relieve us of many of the very worst owners.
Secondly the test itself can indeed educate. We do not have to tax our minds too much to recall the owner who bought a hyperactive terrier in the mistaken belief that small dogs don't need exercise. Or the owner of an aggressive dog that seems astoundingly unaware of their legal responsibilities. Or the owner that never knew they should socialise their dog or the one who thought that a carboot sale was an appropriate place to purchase their dog.
My god, Trouble, if we could find a market for ignorance we'd have no difficulty getting rich!
Ask a trainer how many customer's dogs come from puppyfarms - bet there's a few in every class. And if we question the owners on how and why they made their purchase decision we would discover that some knew what they were doing but didn't care that they were supporting a puppyfarm, they just wanted a dog now - The DOT, by placing a need to sit the test first puts a serious impediment in the place of someone who wants a dog now, now now - or that they didn't know about puppyfarms or perhaps didn't really understand the depths of suffering or how their purchase has ensured future suffering - the DOT can make certain that they do know and do understand and can demonstrate this knowledge.
Sure, I would expect that forum-users like you and I, who are computer literate, motivated to learn and keen to do best by our dogs, might find the test simplistic or insufficiently demanding but for the lady I met in my local park who was walking her 9 month GSD
for the first time in its life it would be a different story!
and what happens to anyone who can't afford the fee for licensing or testing?
The test fee is not set but the author of the proposal believes that the DOT can be self-financing at £40. That's a once-in-a-lifetime cost. It's per owner, not per dog. Existing owners would have a lengthy period of grace before having to take the test (maybe two years which would amount to 50 pence per week).
I have to ask, if you can't afford that can you afford a dog?
Yet another level of taxation is all I can see and completely unenforcable.
For me one of the joys of DOT is that it is, in the main, self-enforcing. A legal burden is placed on all media to ensure that advertisers of dogs have the supplier level DOT, the SDOT, and suppliers ensure that all buyers have the DOT. Media will comply so as to avoid the fines. Suppliers will comply because any un-DOT'ed buyer that they sell a dog to will be a risk to their livelihood for the rest of that dog's life. At any point that owner could be challenged, discovered to be DOTless and set in motion a chain that leads straight back to the supplier. It'd just not worth the risk. With media watching breeders and breeders watching buyers and buyers watching media the whole thing polices itself and leaves the police and dog wardens free to persue the small number of hardcore non-compliants.
Why can't we just use the many laws already in existence to punish anyone committing an offence whatever the weapon used. Intimidation and threatening behaviour are already against the law. Enforce those laws
That's fair comment but it still doesn't cover dog-on-dog attacks, the rescue crisis or dog attacks like Archie-Lee and the others I've mentioned or any of the other problems that arise from irresponsible ownership. The DOT won't cure these things, of course, but it could offer massive improvements.