The debate over government plans to crack down on dangerous dogs in our cities was, for me, timely. Three weeks ago I was the victim of a vicious attack by a black-and-white Staffordshire bull terrier on a London bus.
How such an attack could have come about unprovoked I still do not understand, but despite the shock and confusion the salient details are clear. Boarding the 38 bus from Angel, Islington, to Hackney, I took a seat next to a young man and his dog. The animal was agitated, moving around anxiously and whining; I privately wondered if he'd been training it to fight.
A week earlier a friend had spoken in graphic detail about the "status dogs" she'd seen, forced by their owners to hang from the branches of trees by their teeth, a tactic aimed at strengthening the poor animals' jaws into formidable fighting tools. My neighbour on the night bus, I thought, seemed quite the candidate.
The journey itself passed off uneventfully until its final, terrifying climax. As the bus approached my stop I rose to press the button. Here I made a crucial mistake. As I started to move I looked directly at the dog. As soon as its eyes met mine I knew there was a problem, but it was already too late.
With a guttural growl that turned the stomach, the dog leapt across its owner toward me, teeth bared. It could have been only a split second before the owner took control and pulled it away, but in that moment the animal took a bite, leaving blood pouring down my cheek and out of my nose.
As strangers rushed to assist me I believe I heard the dog's abuser faintly apologise. He can't have been that sorry – he and his four-legged protégé fled.
I was lucky; the wound was superficial. Three weeks, a tetanus jab and a short course of antibiotics later, you'd have to peer closely to notice the small scar on my cheek. But thoughts of what could have been still dominate. That is why legislation to deal with dangerous animals is so important.
Sitting in the hospital with my cheek in bandages, my first thought was for the safety of others. The police took my complaint seriously. They photographed the wound as evidence and searched for man and dog, but so far they have found nothing. They are looking for a needle in a haystack: a mixed-race young man in his late teens or early 20s with a Staffie, not necessarily on a leash. I live behind the Trelawney Estate in Hackney.
The statistics touted last week (in which I suppose I now figure) are frightening: 100 hospital admissions a week following an attack by a dog; a twelvefold increase in the number of complaints to the RSPCA about dog fights; 900 dogs seized by police in London alone last year. In this climate, government plans, including extra training for police and compulsory microchipping for dogs are more than welcome, but will they really address the root cause of this new menace?
Let's take a healthy dose of realism here. Neat solutions packaged up for middle-class families, such as the introduction of a compulsory insurance scheme to compensate victims, will be ignored on the estates of east London.
Purchased from a reputable breeder, a Staffordshire bull terrier can cost up to £1,000. Which of the young owners on the Trelawney can come up with that sort of money? These dogs are bred and bought on the black market. Whatever legislation is passed in Westminster, they will remain unleashed, unchipped and uninsured.
The government would spend its time more profitably addressing the real reasons why people own and train dogs in this way. Why does a young man feel that he can walk his own streets safely only with an aggressive canine in tandem? What happened to me was astonishing, terrifying, outrageous. But so is the sense of alienation and fear felt by the owners of these "status dogs".
The swelling number of these "weapons" is surely a sign of police success in dealing with knife and gun crime. Let's hope this legislation is a first step towards a similar leap forward when it comes to dealing with dangerous dogs.
You may ask why I chose that seat on the bus, the one next to the young man with the growling mutt at his feet? It is a fair question and one I have asked myself numerous times. But in Hackney these dogs are part of the furniture. Long-term residents are used to their presence and we live among them. Until last month I didn't consider that they could present such a danger to me.
The attack, however, has changed my mind. And until the problems of inner city poverty and low (or no) aspiration are addressed, then by itself legislation will do little to tame the terror dogs. What all this points to is a social scar and one far deeper than the bite on my left cheek.
Hannah Fearn is a reporter and feature writer for Times Higher Education magazine
Comments
14 March 2010 1:24AM
You're very right, Ms. Fearn - if anything, it is usually the owners who are barbaric, rather than their poor beasts, who are put through hell to be conditioned as weapons rather than companions.
14 March 2010 10:25AM
Forget the third part insurance: have dog patrols that collect dogs without chips and destroy them. If people really are the often quoted "animal lovers" they'll get their dog chipped. And one child saved from a horrific death is worth ten thousand dogs.
The chip should contain the owners details, which in the event of an attack, or the death of a child, would be viewed in the same way as attacking them with a knife or gun.
But the government will say we can't afford dog patrols - or would officals be too scared to patrol the estates and parks?
14 March 2010 3:32PM
Hannah, glad to hear you were not hurt bad but mostly I am glad to see a logical reaction to what happened to you.
I take issue with only a few things:
First of all, if the dog is a weapon that one could argue that that man attacked you, rather than the dog. On the other hand the dog is not an inanimate object like a knife, gun or a car.
So, is the dog dangerous, or is it the owner? And the society which helps make the owner, etc. Also, "terror dogs" is really over the line, if one considers that these dogs are basically being abused.
So, in response to naturalborncynic, perhaps we should start to think of dogs as family members, and define it legally. (Yes, about 50% of "Americans" consider a dog to be family, as do about 98% of Swedish. Perhaps England is somewhere in the middle...?).
If dogs are considered family members, then all sorts of ill treatment including training for fighting becomes a kind of dependent abuse (an umbrella category which includes child abuse). I am not proposing that dogs (or cats, etc., perhaps anything named) are "children", only that we consider their role - including many beneficial functions - in most families and take appropriate measures.
14 March 2010 4:10PM
Yes, about 50% of "Americans" consider a dog to be family
Okay - if we look at that argument - in America some families have murderers as family members and in most States murderers are executued...........
I could be wrong, but I think even some prisoners (or felons) in America are micro chipped.
14 March 2010 9:35PM
When we went on holiday together in England (St Ives) last year,for the first time, we noticed the plethora of barking, crapping, fighting dogs, on leads mostly. We realised that previous holidays in Spain or Turkey had been free of dogs and brits with dogs. In the narrow streets of St Ives, fat brits with dogs on leads would stand outside shops while their partners shopped. While they shopped their dogs would bark and snarl at each other non stop. It clicked - brits stay at home because they can keep their shit-machines with them, barking crapping, snarling. Even today with the relaxed rules on taking your dogs abroad, Brits are reluctant to go through the hurdles of registering etc to take their dog abroad. Roll on Rabies.
14 March 2010 9:39PM
Greenldeafactory [sic] wants to treat dogs as part of the family. If I took my children to the park or up and down my street crapping everywhere, they would soon be taken from me and I would be prosecuted. Ok lets do it that way.
15 March 2010 12:24AM
@wihm: Remember, it is the people using the dogs as a weapon of crapping. There is nothing wrong with dogs crapping of course; the problem is where they do and most importantly that it is picked up. So, yes, some kind of stiffer punishment is part of what would more productive as mainly a positive thing, e.g. financial incentives for picking up, like when you return empties.
Let's keep in this perspective - perhaps you will reconsider me being truly "green": Automobiles dump far more into our children than dogs. That does not mean do nothing about dogs, just to keep this mind when you suggest various punishments.
15 March 2010 12:24AM
@wihm: Remember, it is the people using the dogs as a weapon of crapping. There is nothing wrong with dogs crapping of course; the problem is where they do and most importantly that it is picked up. So, yes, some kind of stiffer punishment is part of what would more productive as mainly a positive thing, e.g. financial incentives for picking up, like when you return empties.
Let's keep in this perspective - perhaps you will reconsider me being truly "green": Automobiles dump far more into our children than dogs. That does not mean do nothing about dogs, just to keep this mind when you suggest various punishments.
15 March 2010 8:28AM
There's a saying: see a vicious dog and follow up it's lead to find a vicious owner. I have never yet seen a muzzled, vicious-looking canine without seeing a human accomplice that also looks like it should be muzzled. People are being bred with primitive minds. I'm not sure why - whether it's chemicals in food or bad upbringing or both, but they can't get their kicks in life without indulging in barabaric acts of violence; either themselves of by proxy with their dogs. Far more could be done about it and I don't know why it isn't. But then, lots of things could be done about crime and violence and aren't. Incidentally, don't expect the Tories to do much about it if they get in...they want to bring back hunting...dogs tearing victims apart, so they're no better than the human beasts on the streets!
15 March 2010 9:38AM
How to spot a dangerous dog: if it has short legs, a thick neck and an aggressive and violent temperament, then the dog it owns will be a dangerous dog.
17 March 2010 3:14PM
While not taking away from the owner's irresponsibility, when you say
"The animal was agitated, moving around anxiously and whining" would it not have occurred to you to keep your distance from an obviously stressed and therefore potentially dangerous animal?
Surely that's just common sense? A word to the bus driver when you noticed it might have been a good idea as well. No point relying on an obviously idiotic owner to keep you & others safe.
17 March 2010 3:19PM
Just to add, the breed of dog here is irrelevant, and your assumption that it's natural for a bull terrier to behave aggressively is ignorant . The dog was stressed and not controlled and that was what made it a danger to you.
18 March 2010 5:40PM
your assumption that it's natural for a bull terrier to behave aggressively is ignorant
She has written an article on her experience and her opinion of it, not a detailed insight into the ins and outs of dog psychology!
Confiscating (and ultimately destroying) unchipped dogs might eventually get the message across, as naturalborncynic suggests.
19 March 2010 5:25PM
Why would you want to 'destroy' an unchipped dog. Why should having an irresponsible owner mean a death sentence for a dog? Why not just rehome it to someone decent?
19 March 2010 6:04PM
Many of these animals attached to human morons in my neck of North London, too - I don't see them as part of the furniture myself but as a very vivid and frightening symbol of how effing nasty our society has become.
I'm a big bloke and I have no shame whatsoever in crossing the road when I see one -- and its brain-dead fake gangster turd of an owner -- coming towards me. I would NEVER sit down next to one either.
It sounds like this writer has learnt that a tolerant 'Hey yeah, man, you live your vibrant lifestyle and I'll live mine' attitude only works in very small quantities.
20 March 2010 1:46AM
Chavs and dogs....how unsightly ! Nuke them all, I say.
20 March 2010 10:13AM
"She has written ... not a detailed insight into the ins and outs of dog psychology!"
It's hardly that complicated. If you saw a man built like a brick shithouse on a bus, rocking backwards and forwards and muttering, would you go and sit next to him?