There is a flyer at my vets advertising an upcoming meeting at the public library. The topic of the meeting is the dog attacks that have occurred in our small town in the last couple years.
The list three examples:
A woman in her 70s died after being attacked by loose dogs in her neighborhood in 2014.
A child was killed by dogs owned by a family friend in 2015.
This year a child was bit in the face by dog they’d just adopted from the shelter. The dog had been in quarantine for biting another child.
This is a semi rural, mostly low income area with almost zero animal control presence. You don’t see animal control driving around and it can take several hours for them to come, even if a dangerous dog is running around a school bus stop.
There are leash laws in this area, but no one cares. People just let their dogs wander wherever and almost all of them are intact.
Can anything really be done to stop dog attacks here or anywhere?
Fixing the dogs would prevent a majority of the attacks, and training owners to properly socialize and train their dogs would take care of pretty much of the rest. Teaching children how to properly interact with dogs would solve nearly all the rest of them.
There always be people and dogs interacting, so there will always be some number of violent interactions, but it could be lessened.
The last part, teaching children to interact with dogs is an important one. I am sometimes walking my dog, and a kid will come running up out of no where and grab my dog around the neck. They are being playful, sure, but if my dog were not very well tempered, I could see her taking offense to it.
Also, need to point out, you are more likely to be killed by a branch falling out of a tree that is over 8 feet tall, or by falling out of your own bed, than you are by being attacked by a dog, so while I would agree entirely that what can be done should be done, I do not agree that it is a massive pressing problem that needs drastic efforts to change.
You need Animal Control. I don’t know anyone whose dog has ever been picked up, who hasn’t obeyed leash laws and kept the animal’s license updated after being fined once.
If enough people agitate for it, then you’ll get it. There probably is something in place now, it just needs more staff and equipment, which means more funding, which means more taxes, but if enough people want it, the money will be there somewhere.
Dogs need to be licensed, and people need to be fined for not licensing, even if the dog is kept on a leash. The fee for licensing an intact dog needs to be a lot higher than the fee for a fixed dog. That will motivate the people who are just lazy.
In the town where I used to live, the fee for licensing a fixed dog was $2/year. The fee for licensing an intact dog was about 90% (each year) of what a spay/neuter costs, so anyone faced with paying that again and again would usually choose to fix the animal. The fine for an unlicensed dog was $40. So if you got caught with an unlicensed intact dog, you immediately got the $40 fine, plus you had 2 weeks to get the animal (if it was over 6 months) fixed, or you paid the higher licensing fee.
Animal Control publicized this fact with signs posted at places where people took their dogs, and with TV and radio PSAs. The rate of spay/neuter was really high in the area.
A dog that had bitten before should not have been given to a family with a child. Children do things that annoy dogs, and so families with children need especially tolerant dogs.
I agree with this. I was really struck by the last example the OP gave about the child being bitten. I cannot understand why a shelter would place a dog in a home with a child if they knew the dog’s history. That seems highly negligible to me.
Where I live, it is less expensive to license a dog that has been fixed. It sounds to me like the people in general need to be educated. The OP said it’s a rural area, but I cannot imagine why anyone would let their dog roam freely without having a fenced in yard. It sounds like the owners and the population in general need some information. It’s not mentioned in the OP, but I would be curious what the circumstances were in the attacks, were the dogs provoked?
I’m very surprised that dogs are allowed to roam freely in a rural area - here in the UK farmers will shoot them they appear to be worrying livestock. And aren’t guns much more readily available in rural America?
You mean negligent, and I agree. But since it’s a little bit of a hot button for me, I’ll give my answer:
The better rescues evaluate the animal’s personality and behavior and try to match it up with an appropriate new family. Using the example here, a dog that hates children can still be placed with an adult or family that has no kids or plans to have kids. The issue is that this very responsible practice also requires adoption applicants to be willing to be VERY honest with themselves and the adoption group. They don’t have kids now, but do they plan to have them in the future (of the dog’s lifetime)? Are they SURE? Because sometimes accidents to happen, are they willing to do what it takes to ensure the safety of their future new child or any kids that come around the dog? REALLY?
Lots of people are deeply offended by groups that screen adoption applicants. Those are the people who buy dogs from the nearest municipal shelters that doesn’t screen.
You’ve almost answered your own question. The solution is education about proper pet care and training. The problem is that there is a lack of such education in rural areas and actual scorn for leash laws. The community needs to step up with funding animal control, local rescue organizations and work to educate themselves.
In a rural area, the farmers or ranchers will shoot them. A feral dog is as bad as a coyote. And in an urban or suburban area, the local animal control will take care of things. The problem areas are those that are gaining population density, where it’s not as safe to shoot or law enforcement will hassle you for shooting, but not enough of a tax base to support animal control.
Parts of N/W Arkansas which are semi rural like where I live have many dogs, a few are inside floor mops, a few are behind a fence but over 90% are free to roam. Strange thing is most of them don’t really roam much. Over to the neighbor is about it. Mostly stay home and act as watchdogs.
Neighbor dog comes for food just because she is a greedy gut, other wise harmless, sometimes likes to play with Zeus. Minds us well. All the locals know the local dogs and have had interactions with them. Problem animals are kept fenced. No dogs on a chain under a tree 24/7. All their neighbors would be over reading to them out of the book.
We have coyotes but there is plenty of easy food for them to catch it seems.
Every where around here anyone who sees dogs chasing live stock will try to do something, shoot them or if they recognize the dog, will go straight to the owner ASAP. Ever caught again, the dog will disappear if possible or be found dead on it’s porch, delivered to it’s owner dead or left for the scavengers.
Don’t have any folks around here who do not understand the rules or is stupidly arrogant enough to think they don’t apply to their animals.
We have animal control but they seldom come out of the city limits because they are seldom called. It is handled by the surrounding neighbors.
Lost dogs who are not troubling anything get caught and local notice is put on the internet which is about 80% at finding the owner or then it goes to the local rescue/pound which is ‘no kill’. This seems to be more & more the preferred method for all the non-violent dogs that people in town come up with.
IMO, from what I see, most dogs have people problems and not dogs being the cause of the problem.
In most rural areas, farmers can shoot at dogs on their property. They are entitled to protect their livestock. My own dog once got out after the gate was accidentally left open. Swam straight across the lake behind our house and started playing with the bull at the farm there. Well, he was playing, and the bull was getting thoroughly irritated. The farmer shot at him. He turned around and ran up to her, tail wagging and sooo happy to see her. She decided he was a harmless idiot, and we ended up getting him back. She was entirely in her rights to shoot him, however.
Parvo is one of the worse ways I’ve seen dogs die. It usually kills puppies, but it has taken a number of older dogs too.
It is extremely contagious, and is resident in the environment for months. You would not need to spread the disease, the disease is already just about everywhere.
Fortunately, most dogs are vaccinated against parvo, so your method of genocide will not work.
We had actually had an animal control officer that used to drive around 7-8 years ago, but then the man that owns most of the rental properties in the area had an affair with her and she, nor animal control, has been seen since.
I think “indoor floor mop” would have been clearer, but lots of people refer to their dogs or cats as “inside cats” or “outside cats” or “inside dogs” or “outside dogs.”
When the people choose to care then, and only then, they will change their behavior.
So what you’re effectively telling us is that you care but your community doesn’t. In that case instead of looking for a community-based solution that will protect everyone, choose a personal solution that protects you and ignore the impact loose dogs have on any/everyone else; those people are not your problem.
That solution can be moving to a community that shares more of your attitude about community in general and loose dogs in particular, or it can be never going outside unarmed. Or something in the middle.
Separately you can choose or not to be an activist about this issue, working to change community attitudes. That is mostly thankless work, but once in awhile real gains happen from grass roots activism.
