{"id":1011,"date":"2012-09-09T12:40:59","date_gmt":"2012-09-09T02:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2012-09-27T12:51:35","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T02:51:35","slug":"outcry-over-new-victoria-dog-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1011","title":{"rendered":"Outcry over new Victoria dog laws"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>Veterinary groups have been highly critical of Victorian laws which led to two dogs being euthanased.\r\n\r\nThe dogs, named Bear and Kooda, were destroyed in June under Victoria\u2019s new dangerous dog laws following a legal battle to save them.\r\n\r\nThe dogs had not engaged in antisocial behaviour, but were put down after an officer from Moira Shire Council identified them as pitbull crosses, despite the owners\u2019 claim that they were bred from a Staffordshire-ridgeback cross and a bull mastiff cross American bulldog.\r\n\r\nVictoria toughened its dog laws following the fatal mauling of a toddler last year.\r\n\r\nThe legislation has procedures for councils on how to identify pitbulls based on indicators such as build and head profile.\r\n\r\nThe RSPCA, AVA and ASAVA have expressed concerns that new laws could punish responsible dog owners, who follow the law and have their pit bull or pit bull crosses registered, and let irresponsible owners slip under the radar.\r\nPresident of the ASAVA, West Australian vet David Neck, said he supports a \u201cdeed not breed\u201d approach.\r\n\r\n\u201cNominating specific breeds and the breed specific focus is comparitively very easy to draft in to legislation, but it is very difficult to act on. The AVA has certainly said for quite some time that such policy is expensive, proven to be ineffective overseas, and you can run in to all sorts of problems when you try to enforce it,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nNeck said the AVA is preparing a national model for dangerous dog regulations based on policy options from around the world.\r\n\r\nHe theoretically supports the Calgary Model, which punishes behaviour and not breed, despite greater difficulties in drafting it in to legislation.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is a model that doesn\u2019t just come up with a list of breeds and draw a line through them. It\u2019s like saying to somebody who is a good and law-abiding person, \u2018your family are a bunch of criminals, and so we are just going to lock you up by association\u2019.\u201d\r\n\r\nNeck added that there is too great a focus on dog attacks, which is not necessarily where antisocial dog behaviour begins and ends.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is important for dogs to be responsible owners, and at the first sign of any kind of trouble, to pick up on it early, to get dogs socialised from early ages and to seek out the help of a behaviourist,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cVets should let dog owners know that education is the cornerstone, and it is better than laws as it is the first line of defense. Owners who see behaviourists, for example, will be educated along with their animal, and better understand dog behaviour themselves, and that can only be a good thing.\u201d\r\n SAM WORRAD<\/strong>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veterinary groups have been highly critical of Victorian laws which led to two dogs being euthanased. The dogs, named Bear and Kooda, were destroyed in June under Victoria\u2019s new dangerous dog laws following a legal battle to save them. The dogs had not engaged in antisocial behaviour, but were put down after an officer from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[865,578,320,572,864,862,99,198,861,863,113,866,75,280,347],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asava","tag-ava","tag-behaviour","tag-breeding","tag-calgary-model","tag-dangerous-dogs","tag-dogs","tag-law","tag-laws","tag-mauling","tag-news-2","tag-pit-bull","tag-rspca","tag-sam-worrad","tag-victoria"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":402,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":402,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"Veterinary groups have been highly critical of Victorian laws which led to two dogs being euthanased. The dogs, named Bear and Kooda, were destroyed in June under Victoria\u2019s new dangerous dog laws following a legal battle to save them. The dogs had not engaged in antisocial behaviour, but were put down after an officer from Moira Shire Council identified them..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"865":{"name":"ASAVA","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=asava"},"578":{"name":"AVA","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=ava"},"320":{"name":"behaviour","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=behaviour"},"572":{"name":"breeding","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=breeding"},"864":{"name":"Calgary Model","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=calgary-model"},"862":{"name":"dangerous dogs","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=dangerous-dogs"},"99":{"name":"dogs","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=dogs"},"198":{"name":"law","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=law"},"861":{"name":"laws","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=laws"},"863":{"name":"mauling","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=mauling"},"113":{"name":"news","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=news-2"},"866":{"name":"pit bull","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=pit-bull"},"75":{"name":"RSPCA","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=rspca"},"280":{"name":"Sam Worrad","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=sam-worrad"},"347":{"name":"Victoria","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=victoria"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1028,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/1028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}