Dog theft is rising. It’s been rising for every year since I began writing about dog theft back in 2000. But right now? Right now it’s really, really becoming a huge problem and a terrifying prospect for any dog owner. So I thought I’d give some of my thoughts on what you can do about…
For as long I can remember, I always wanted a dog. Probably like a lot of children who want a dog. Only I can safely say my desire for a dog was something much more integral to who I was as a person than an ordinary childhood desire for a pet. I wanted a dog…
I was once writing an article for K9 Magazine about how to stop dogs begging for food and why treat training (where the owner uses a food treat to ‘bribe’ the dog in to good behaviour all the time) can often be doomed to failure with certain dogs. It reminded me of one of my…
Over the past few years we’ve heard a number of alternative dangerous dog’ solutions proposed. Ways and means by which we can prevent dog attacks from occurring. Ideas and suggestions which can help us rid ourselves of the menace of dog attacks. One of the most common ideas put forward seems, on the face of…
As dog lovers, we must all, surely, feel a massive twang of pity and regret when we think of those puppies who have been bred for profit by breeders who are interested only in how to produce maximum volume of stock’ with scant regard for the welfare, health or temperament of the animals they churn…
According to research by scientists, dogs can display signs of jealousy comparable to humans. Personally, I don’t believe they do and I’ll explain more about that in a moment. But first let us look at the new research done in the name of science. The experiment consisted of taking pairs of dogs and getting them…
As always, there is a lot of discussion about how we can introduce laws to tackle the problem of dangerous dogs. It’s a heated debate often grounded in media hype, misguided prejudices and emotion. Rather than make kneejerk decisions on what we THINK we might know about serious and fatal dog attacks we should be…
Some people never learn from the mistakes of history. Former Home Secretary Ken Baker is one of those people. His introduction of the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act and, along with it, breed specific legislation (outlawing/banning certain dogs by type’) has been an unmitigated failure. A disaster on every level. Dog attacks have not reduced, the…
Undoubtedly it’s going to be controversial. Without fear of chicken counting, it will receive a lot of traffic. And without any element of doubt, it might cause ripples but it needs to be out there, for the public to know. We’ve decided to publicly name the five MOST dangerous dogs on the planet. The Most…
I thought, for no reason in particular, that today might be a good day to re-publish the following article (written in 2008) in relation to media reporting of dog attacks. Written by Ryan O’Meara Last week I made a short appeal to the media to show a little more care’ when reporting’ on dog attacks….