I'm going to leave this blog pretty plain and simple...The National Canine Research Council had a great blog post this week that is extremely important. There IS documented proof that BSL is not effective and dangerous dog laws are. The link is below.
The NCRC is also offering this free download that every dog owner and concerned citizen should read. Here's a small piece of the newly revised "Dog Bites: Problems and Solutions".
"Many “dangerous dog” laws try not only to control dogs who have
already injured people, but to predict which ones will do so in the
future and attempt to prevent this. Typical legal descriptions of dog
behavior include “approaches in a vicious or terrorizing manner,” or
“in a menacing fashion,” or having “a known disposition, tendency,
or propensity to attack,” or “engages in any behavior that requires a
defensive action by any person to prevent bodily injury.” 80,81 Aside
from the subjectivity of these descriptions, the main difficulty with
such an approach is that the best research to date indicates the
likelihood that a majority of dogs engage in threatening behavior, but
that few among these bite, and far fewer actually injure when they
bite.
One groundbreaking study found that 41 percent of the dogs studied
had growled, snarled or snapped at a familiar person at some time in
the dog’s life. A smaller proportion of all the dogs, 15 percent, had
actually bitten.82 Of those who had bitten, fewer than 10 percent of
the bites had injured.83 This means that a net cast to identify the 1.5
percent of dogs who will injure based on whether they had growled,
snarled, snapped or lunged would actually capture at least 41 percent
of the dog population. In other words, at least 93 percent of the dogs
identified in this way as “dangerous” would never actually injure
anyone. And since these studies only included behavior toward family
members and other people well known to the dog, and only included
guardians responsible and caring enough to provide veterinary care
for their pets, the percentages of dogs that growl, snarl and snap 16
Animals and Society Institute: Dog Bites: Problems and Solutions (Revised 2014)
within the entire dog population must certainly be considerably higher.
Simply put, growling, snarling and snapping at humans is normal
among domestic dogs. Biting is common; inflicting injurious bites is
not."
Below is the link for the printable version of the free download...
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