NATURAL ANKLING wrote:Hi,
IIRC they changed the law on cruelty to animals from 6 months to six years imprisonment.
Trouble is that in my experience when a dog bites a human for first time nothing happens, and do they even bother to record it?
If some one was to sell a dog would police know it has bitten before.
Apart from involving dogs, I'm unclear of the connection here with cruelty to animals.
I doubt anybody would get six years for fighting off a mutt with a bike pump.
I think that the identification of a dog as "dangerous" which traditionally has meant the first bite is on the house, and the subsequent identification of a dog as having had that first chance is problematic as is the identification of a dog as the biter unless the investigation is almost immediate. All this is probably amenable - at least in theory - to the use of DNA, specialist examination by a canine orthodontist, and I could even imagine some extention of facial-recognition technology to man's best friend. In the real word, no chance and offences have to be proved to the criminal standard. I'm not saying it's impossible, as the case in my link shows, but it's not easy. I can't remember if it's in my link or if I read it elsewhere but initially the defendant in this case was apparently intending to plead not guilty, on the grounds that it was subject to a confiscation order so it belonged to the courts, even though she had not complied and still had the dog in her possession.