Orville Taylor | ‘Chuck’ it to the dogs: No bones with the new bill

Sometimes your best friend is your worst enemy, and those who you think are tame are simply wild. Our young boys call themselves that, but if it is a term of loyalty, then find something else because I am no one’s dog. Moreover, this man’s ‘best friend’ is a woman, not a canine, and no negative gender reference along these lines are tolerated.

Anyway, after a couple of missteps where I’ve publicly disagreed with him, Justice Minister Delroy Chuck has barked up the right tree and is ushering new legislation to address incidents of domestic dogs attacking and harming innocents. Reports are that the Dogs (Liability for Injuries By) Act of 1877 will be repealed and a more sensible statute introduced.

Beyond the common-law obligations, the legislation will now enforce the muzzling, harnessing, and confining of Rover by criminal sanctions. Excellent move because a dog is a potential weapon, just like a machete, a martial arts sword or firearm, and should be treated as such. Hopefully, the law will also address the threats and the ‘apprehension of fear’ that comes when innocent bystanders, though not physically harmed, are scared to incontinence by the Shih-poo or Doggo Argentino.

Long Overdue Law

A new law is long overdue. After all, there are many dog breeds that now exist that were not even conceived of when it was first enacted. And no, the little Shih Tzu is an old fort dog, bred from the 1600s in China although it was not until just before World War II that it made its way out of Asia. Many ferocious breeds such as the Rottweiler, Doberman, Alsatian (German Shepherd), and, of course, the nefarious Pit Bull, have multiplied, often with no concomitant increase in skill, training, or responsibility of owners. Internationally, we now have more than 900 million domestic dogs, including 90 million, one-tenth of the global population, living in the USA distributed among 60 million households.

Admittedly, I am not much of a dog man, although a faithful defence dog is less likely to jam than a gun that will run out of bullets long before the canine runs out of steam.

What is important to know is that a dog is a dog is a dog. It is an animal, which does what animals naturally do. As dog expert Cesar Milano says, “There are no problem breeds, only problem owners.” Unregulated dogs have harmed thousands of innocents, but even ‘well-mannered’ animals have killed their owners and their and neighbours’ children. While writing this column, I am reviewing some horrific pictures of my friend, who miraculously survived the savagery of three ‘wolves’ two years ago.

More than three million Americans are bitten each year, resulting in up to 13,000 hospital admissions and an average of 40 deaths annually. Only humans kill more people than domestic dogs, who take around 30,000 lives globally. This compares with 10 for wolves, 500 for hippos and elephants, and 1,000 by crocodiles.

My Favourite Animal

Call me weird if you wish, but my favourite animal is the crocodile. Yes, the snaggle-toothed dinosaur, crocodylus acutus, which shows all its teeth when its mouth is closed, but I have no misconception that it is smiling. Reptiles are not your friends. They will bite you as quickly as if you were prey even if you have fed them consistently for a decade. The idea of dogs or cats being tame has never sat well with me. A domestic cat looks no different from its jungle cat ancestors and because a dog is no tamer than the ‘bull-cow’ that will butt you to death, I feel no compunction about my meat-eating friends consuming any canine, including the expensive Asian breed almost eponymously named Chow chow.

Biologists seem to agree that modern domestic dogs, canis lupus familiaris, descended from the grey wolf, and from the Great Dane to the chihuahua, have the identical DNA to canis lupus. Believe it or not, despite their appearance, poodles are just as wolf as are Alaskan Malamutes and huskies.

All dogs will bite if provoked, and some will do so without obvious provocation. The difference is that when a Pomeranian nips you, it might kill you from fright or some secondary infection, or you could bleed to death if it tags a major blood vessel. However, one chomp from a dog that is as heavy as a lying politician’s conscience could cancel your check.

My wish is that the act go farther and seek to map and trace all dogs, with their owners having to have a national identification system. Get their DNA, too, so that when we have feral dogs that pack and revert to being wolves and attack people, the original owners can be held accountable.

- Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at The UWI, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.