BSL

Breed Specific Legislation

This is legislation enforced in the UK where your dog can be destroyed if it looks like a banned type of dog, regardless of it's actual breed or behaviour. This was introduced in 1991 as a response to several high profile dog attacks and an increase in the number of people using "prestige dogs" as weapons. I'm old enough to remember the media stories at the time.

Obviously there are two emotional sides to this legislation. In my view there's the "I'm afraid of dogs and therefore they should be killed so I can feel safe" argument (spoiler: I'm on the opposite side). Then there's the "I want a pitbull" argument. Unfortunately, in any discussion which has it's basis in emotion, it's impossible to convince the opposing side. I can't cure your fear of dogs, you can't stop me wanting one...

• Are you seriously asking me to put my child's life at risk for the sake of your dog????
• But your child isn't at risk from my dog...
• YOU CAN'T KNOW THAT
• My dog loves children, he's super gentle with them
• WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN
• Your dog might not kill children, but some people make their dogs aggressive. You can't argue that bigger dogs do more damage when they attack.

While while we continue the above argument ad nauseam, the dogs continue to die. Which is a shame, because we have a lot of evidence to show that BSL has been a complete failure in protecting the public. First off, "BSL has not succeeded in reducing dog bite-related injuries wherever in the world it has been enacted." National canine research council. If that's not enough of a blow to BSL, it's also not going to work in the future with some amendments because it's fundamental principle is wrong: "There is no evidence from the controlled study of dog bites that one kind of dog is more likely to bite a human being than another kind of dog. A recent AVMA survey covering 40 years and two continents concluded that no group of dogs should be considered disproportionately dangerous".

Unfortunately, the media has moved on from it's high profile cases of dog attacks, leaving in its wake new and harmful phrases like "large aggressive breeds". This means that stories about how the media portrayed dogs were completely wrong are very thin on the ground.

Despite the fact that we've a history worth of evidence to show that banning things is a terrible idea, we seem doomed to repeat the mistake over and over again. I find it soul crushing to think that we, as a society, look at a problem like "owners training their dogs to be vicious" and decide that eradicating the dogs is a sensible solution. That we would rather kill dogs than face our own fear of them. That we concentrate on "the dog problem" when we suffer 4 dog bite fatalities per year in the UK as compared to road fatalities in the thousands. No one has considered banning cars because it's simply not a workable solution...

I assume that during the talks prior to the introduction of the legislation someone must have said "Perhaps the problem lies in the owners, maybe we need to concentrate on the fact that society is creating people who want to hurt each other and are using dogs to achieve that goal". The fact that the lone voice of reason was lost in the desire to be seen to be doing something quickly is what really makes me sad.