Category: Campaigns

Royal Mail Dog Awareness Week 2017

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Royal Mail workers make deliveries to more than 29 million addresses across the UK. Not all of them come away unscathed.

An average of seven postal workers are attacked by dogs each day. Attacks increase during the school holidays and in the summer months especially when dogs are left unsupervised in gardens, allowed to roam or taken out off lead. Owners who do not keep their dogs under control could be in breach of the Road Traffic Act, The Control of Dogs Order and/or the Dangerous Dogs Act to name but three pieces of legislation. Since 2013, the DDA has covered attacks by dogs that occur on private property. The majority of the dogs reported as stolen have been left unsupervised in gardens, so, it is not just postal workers who are at risk.

2,471 postmen and women were attacked by dogs between April 2016 and April 2017. Some were left with permanent, disabling injuries. 71% of attacks happened in gardens or on the doorstep. No one should work in fear of their safety and no one should be traumatised or injured through preventable causes.

All dogs have the potential to be a danger to postal staff, regardless of their size. What you might perceive as being boisterous and friendly may seem frightening to your postman and even the tiniest of dogs can inflict nasty injuries. Even if your dog’s intentions are benign, your postman should not have to endure being jumped on, scratched or barked at every day. (Neither should anyone else for that matter). Every time that your dog barks at someone delivering letters and they go away, his confidence increases because he has defended his territory from an intruder. (A territorial dog is not protecting you, he is asserting his possession). The next time that you have to open the door to sign for something or receive a parcel, your dog may escalate his defensive aggression and bite.

  • Keep your dog away from the front door every time that visitors call – use a child gate or shut the door
  • Do not allow children to open the door and make sure that they do not allow the dog out if confined
  • Train your dog to lie quietly on a mat when visitors call and reward him for staying there
  • Control your dog’s greeting behaviour and do not allow jumping up, scratching or over-excited barking
  • Control territorial barking – get professional help if necessary
  • Do not leave a dog unattended in a garden and secure the garden so that your dog cannot get out
  • Always put your dog on a lead before you leave the house even if you are putting your dog in the car
  • Fit a secure mail box on the property boundary or a wire receptacle behind the door to contain the mail so that postman cannot get bitten when using the letterbox and to prevent your dog from damaging the mail.

Postal workers’ safety is YOUR responsiblity.

KC Plays Tail End Charlie

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The KC has just published a report entitled What the Kennel Club does for Dog Health

Many dog owners may feel that the title is a bit rich given that canine health would probably not be in such dire straits were it not for the KC’s implementation of closed stud books and perpetuation of breeding for looks.

The Kennel Club has been playing tail end Charlie in the court of public opinion since at least 2008. Its brand is being seen as being increasingly toxic and any efforts that it makes to improve the situation are likely to be doomed to irrelevance in the face of the scale of the problem that is, after all, largely of their own making.

Is it too little too late?

Read more…

RSPCA – How Is Your Generosity Treated?

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rspca You don’t have to look far in the dog world and beyond to come across horrendous cases of cruelty, never mind the daily grind of neglect and abuse inflicted upon dogs and other animals. The RSPCA state that they receive calls to their cruelty line in England and Wales on average every 30 seconds, totalling 1,118,495 calls in 2015. They investigate more than 140,000 complaints of cruelty and neglect annually. So when you drop money into the collecting tin for the RSPCA, purchase something in one of their shops or attend a fundraising event on their behalf, where do you expect your money to go?

The RSPCA state that 82p in every £1 donated is spent on animal welfare, 1p on governance and 17p on fundraising and that £10 could provide a day’s boarding for a horse, £25 PPE for an inspector and £50 van equipment. Not surprisingly, they do not produce a breakdown for external barristers fees which have been recorded as being £800 – £1,200 per day in their prosecution against the Heythrop Hunt. In spite of having their own legal department, the RSPCA chose to engage Mr Carter-Manning QC who submitted costs of £73,310.80. His assistants added another £90,000 to the bill. This represents approximately 244 hours of the QC’s time which he spent watching amateur video footage. The four charges that were eventually brought against hunt staff are regarded as being so minor that they are classified as “non-recordable”. The remaining charges were dropped. In previous situations when the RSPCA has lost a case, defendants’ costs have been borne by the taxpayer. In addition, the RSPCA admiited to euthanasing 3,400 animals for non-clinical reasons in 2011 in spite of having an official no kill policy.

The RSPCA must already have marked 2016 down as being an annus horribilis following a submission to a Parliamentary committee by the National Police Chiefs Council which recommended that animal welfare prosecutions should be carried out by “a single agency, preferably a statutory body funded by Government”. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has also questioned whether it is appropriate for the RSPCA to bring forward private prosecutions when it is also involved in campaigning and fundraising. Owen Paterson, Secretary of State, warned the RSPCA to be “wary” of muddling charity and politics. The charity regulator further ordered the RSPCA to conduct an inquiry into their organisation and structure using independent auditors. RSPCA inspectors were banned from rehoming animals unless an indepdent vet attests to have personally seen evidence of suffering following over-zealous actions against pet owners. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, animal welfare groups have the power to investigate cases, but the decision to prosecute lies with the state.

Much of the impetus behind the recommendations follows aggressive persecution of hunts, including the Heythrop. Their case cost the RSPCA £325,000 as opposed to the average cost of £2,500 per case. Other cases such as that against Cattistock Hunt in March have collapsed and, in the Cattistock case, the RSPCA withdrew all its “evidence”. The cost to charity to take the case and similar cases that far has not been revealed. Persecuting hunt staff is therefore regarded as being 100 times more important than any of the cruelty cases that they use to tug at your heart – and purse- strings.

When new CEO Jeremy Cooper took over in spring this year, it seemed that the RSPCA might extricate themselves from the mire into which they have been wallowing since following an aggressive anti-field sport agenda in the mid 1970s. He apologised for the charity becoming “too political” and referenced both hunting and the government badger cull that aims to eradicate TB in cattle. He was forced to eat his words almost immediately by the RSPCA’s governing body.

Just when it seemed that it could not get any worse, shocking revelations have been made by the Information Commissioner, responsible for dealing with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 amongst other legislation.

The RSPCA has been fined £25,000 on the RSPCA (and the British Heart Foundation £18,000) for “wealth screening” donors. The RSPCA has paid “wealth management” companies since 2010 to trace and target new or lapsed donors illegally and pursue them for more donations by piecing together personal information obtained from other sources and trading personal details with other charities. Donors were not informed of the charity’s practices and so had not opportunity to consent or object to their use of personal data. The Information Commissioner stated “The millions of people who give their time and money to benefit good causes will be saddened to learn that their generosity wasn’t enough”. Indeed. They might also consider it a massive betrayal of trust. The RSPCA confirmed that the practice has now ended but disagreed with the Information Commissioner’s conclusions and may appeal against the decision – no doubt spending even more money on legal fees.

Whilst the RSPCA are not alone amongst charities of pursuing aggressive and even it seems illegal practices, they are one of the few that exist to help dogs and other animals. Surely the thousands of abused animals that they are supposed to protect deserve to benefit from their not-inconsiderable funds more than lawyers?

A Thousand Little Insults

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tight-lead I was walking alongside a local common this weekend, as it happens, without my dog. I noticed, coming towards me from the opposite direction, a woman walking a Cavalier King Charles spaniel on an extendable lead. The dog was several feet ahead of the woman and, as she got nearer, she let it veer across to the other side of the path to carry on sniffing. This meant that about 10 feet of lead was stretched across the path about a foot from the ground.

When she got to within a foot or two of me, the woman suddenly jerked the dog by the neck and, without reeling in the lead, hauled it across the path, simpering at me to show how considerate she had been.

The dog was extremely startled and, needless to say, the woman oblivious to its feelings.

I wondered how many times that this woman inflicts this treatment on her dog. Then I wondered how many owners are meting out exactly the same treatment to their dogs, day after day.

This week most right-thinking people would have been outraged by the thug who throttled his Staffy, booted his head and then swung him against the side of a train carriage. There is a petition to ask the prime minister to intervene and increase his sentence from a meagre 21 weeks. Punishment alone is unlikely to change his behaviour but this does seem a pretty feeble reaction from the judiciary who no doubt would have imposed a much tougher sentence had it been a child. The poor dog died three days later.

It is easy to feel outraged by blatent cruelty such as this, but most people are oblivious to the daily cruelty that they inflict on their dogs, choking them, shouting at them or just being mostly cross. Not training a dog to walk properly on the lead (or to cope with the environment in which they are forced to live) and lazily using gadgets such as flexi-leads, halters and headcollars in lieu of their own lack of input inflicts constant, continuous insults on dogs and damages their trust in the very people that no doubt, declaim their “love” for their pet.

Which is worse: a sudden, voilent assault or constant daily battery? Not much of a choice is it.

Going With A Bang

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dog-firework As we are about to come into the weekend that many dog owners and owners of other animals dread, is it time to reconsider our approach to fireworks? Personally, I have always hated fireworks and have no idea why some people get pleasure out of a few flashing lights and loud bangs and screeches. It was bad enough when it was restricted to November 5th and possibly the nearest weekend, but now, any gathering seems to be an excuse for fireworks from outdoor concerts to private parties.

This not only means that the duration of firework noise is extended, but that animal owners cannot predict when to take precautions to keep them safe or just less stressed. I have never encountered neighbours who had the courtesy to warn of their intention to let off fireworks and the law is regularly flouted with regard to restrictions on when they can be used.

Every year, although there are serious injuries caused by fireworks that put unnecessary pressure on already over stretched emergency services, recent attempts to restrict fireworks to public displays only have been rejected by parliament. The subject was last debated on June 6th, 2016. The short answer was “We are aware that fireworks can cause distress to animals. Restrictions on the general public’s use of fireworks and permitted noise levels already exist and we have no plans to extend them.”

This is no much consolation to those of us who have to deal with the serious effects that animals, including dogs, have to suffer as well as the distress to owners.

It seems unlikely that a call for a ban on public sale will have any success in the foreseeable future, so what if there was more publicity about better fireworks? The town of Collecchio near Parma, Italy has introduced local legislation requiring all citizens to use silent fireworks for the good of the community. In the UK, the UK Firework Review provides information about a variety of quieter and silent fireworks. There will probably always be people who get a thrill out of creating a great deal of noise who may not be persuaded, but it is possible that a substantial majority of people might.

Surely anything that reduces the noise will make life a little easier for stressed and frightened animals and their owners?

Get out there and spread the word! In the meantime, sign the petition for the mandatory use of silent fireworks in the UK.

Can You Rise To The Bulldog Challenge?

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bulldog-illness UC Davies has recently published a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Canine Genetics and Epidemiology examining the genetic diversity among 102 registered English Bulldogs, all used for breeding. The authors’ objective was to assess whether the breed retains enough genetic diversity to correct the abnormalities associated with poor health which have a genetic basis and which can be seen in the outward appearance of many dogs.

Predictably, some in the bulldog fraternity have attempted to discredit the paper while other continue to stick their fingers in their ears and their heads in the sand. The health problems of this breed, as the authors note, are well documented and include:

Severe conformational changes necessitating a high rate of artificial insemination and Caesarean sections
Small litter sizes (inbreeding depression)
Extremely high levels of congenital disease and associated puppy mortality including flat chests with splayed legs, anasarca and cleft palate
Poor lifespan ranging from 3.2 to 11.3 years with a median of 8.4 years as dogs requiring extensive veterinary care at a young age rarely live beyond 5–6 years of age.

The bulldog suffers its own particular problems due to brachycephaly combined with a tongue that is excessively large at the base, a large palate that is easily obstructed by the base of the tongue, a lower jaw that is pushed forward, frequently stenotic nares and a hypoplastic trachea. Consequently, they suffer from loud panting during exercise, stridor and slobbering during rest, sleep apnoea, hypercapnia and hypochloremia/hypomagnesemia, exercise intolerance, cyanosis and collapse and choking fits manifested by gagging, retching, vomiting, aerophagia, flatulence and aspiration pneumonia. The breathing difficulties of English bulldogs also make them very sensitive to overheating and heat stroke.

Chondrodysplasia, a heritable skeletal disorder, predisposes English bulldogs to hip and elbow dysplasia, luxating patella and shoulders, intervertebral disk disease, cruciate ligament rupture, hemivertebra, torsional pelvic deformity and, as mentioned, difficulty in achieving normal copulation and parturition. Prognathism predisposes to dental disease, while excessive folding of the skin, especially on the face, is associated with skin fold dermatitis, muzzle acne, folliculitis, furunculosis and eye conditions such as entropion, ectropion and eversion of the third eyelid. The cork-screw tail can result in tail fold dermatitis. Inbreeding has also produced cataracts, heart valve defects including pulmonic stenosis, hydrocephalus, cysteine urolithiasis and hiatal hernias, immunologic disorders including a propensity for severe demodectic mange due to immunodeficiency, allergies associated with atopic dermatitis and ear infections and autoimmune diseases such as hypothyroidism. The common range of cancers include glioblastoma, mast cell sarcoma and lymphoma.

Doesn’t sound like a very healthy breed does it?

Many owners who accept these defects as “normal” pay huge amounts for treatments as their dogs stagger through their shortened lives but many dogs also end up in rescue or are euthanised due to the prohibitive cost of treatment.

All may not be lost as there are a few bulldogs out there that can breathe and move freely, reproduce naturally and that are free from skin and eye problems, allergies and other immunologic disorders.

The papers authors are therefore calling the bluff of bulldog owners outraged by their paper. They have issued a global challenge to bulldog breeders and owners to provide proof that their dog is a purebred (registered), healthy English bulldog. Owners are requested to e-mail the authors with supporting evidence. If the dog is deemed to meet the criteria as defined by the authors, the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at UC Davies will provide a free DNA collection kit from which a genetic profile of the dog can be compared with the information provided in the genetic assessment paper and added to the genetic profile database for the English bulldog. The aim is to identify a genetic profile that is conducive to greater health and it may yet save the breed from imploding.

Pedersen NC et al (2016) A genetic assessment of the English bulldog, Canine Genetics and Epidemiology, V3(6) DOI: 10.1186/s40575-016-0036-y [accessed online at https://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/dog/GeneticDiversityInEnglishBulldogs.php]

Thanks to Pedigree Dogs Exposed for this information.

Vets Call For Ban On Homeopathy

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ban homeopathy A group of veterinary surgeaons has written an open letter to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons to ask them to blacklist homeopathy from the treatments veterinary surgeons are allowed to offer animals and their owners. They believe that the current position of allowing veterinary surgeons to prescribe homeopathic treatments, which have been proven not to work, is both an animal welfare issue and fails to meet the standard required for scientific veterinary practice. This is a disservice to the animals and their owners. They state:

“We believe the RCVS should not allow members to prescribe homeopathy because:

  • It is an animal welfare issue
  • It undermines public confidence in mainstream medicine
  • It would further differentiate veterinary surgeons from unlicensed healers
  • It devalues conventional treatments
  • It devalues conventional qualifications
  • It would allow the veterinary profession to take the lead, forging the way for our human medical counterparts to do the same.

There is also an online petition that you can sign.

CReDO and DogsNet fully endorse this stance. Disagree? Post a comment!

New Fines Proposed For Dog Fouling

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dog poo bin overflowing A bill is currently going through the House of Lords proposing to amend the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005.

The new proposals would add the following clause:

“In Chapter 1 of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 (controls on dogs), insert—
“55 Dog fouling: offence
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he or she allows a dog for which he or she is responsible to foul in any place to which this section applies and does not dispose of the dog waste.
(2) This section applies to any place in the area of a principal litter authority which is open to the air and accessible to the public.
(3) No offence is committed under subsection (1) where the dog fouling is—
(a)authorised by law; or
(b)done by or with the consent of the owner, occupier or other person having control of the place where the fouling occurs.

The maximum fine allowable will also be raised from £80 to £100.

It is also proposed that dog faeces be added to the cigarettes and chewing gum as item regarded as litter under Section 98(5A)(b) of the Environmental Protection Act.

If the Bill is passed, as looks likely, a duty will also be imposed on local authorities to provide a minimum number of waste bins, but alas only for cigarettes and chewing gum. Cuts to local authority budgets have already seen a decline in all types of waste bin as well as fewer collections. Beats me why councils haven’t used dog poo compost bins; they could then sell the results to gardeners.

Picking up and disposing of dog waste responsibly is vital to prevent the spread of disease from dog to dog as well to other animals, including humans. An increasing number of dogs are fed a raw diet or may be given raw bones, raising the chances that they will shed bacteria such as salmonella, giardia and campylobacter into the environment. Additionally, some diseases only spread when faeces are a few days old. Dog feces may contain parvovirus, whipworms, hookworms, roundworms, threadworms, campylobacteriosis, giardia and coccidia. If left unattended, parasites can contaminate water and soil and result in infection in dogs and humans. Neosporosis and sarcocystosis can spread from dog faces on grazing land and cause, respectively, abortions in cattle and neurological disease and death in sheep.

So

BAG IT, BIN IT AND DISPOSE OF IT RESPONSIBLY.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

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stay or go What should the British bulldog do and what will happen to the resources? Do we get to keep our own bones or do we have to hand them over to Europe?

Regardless of your opinion on the European Union referendum next week, the fact remains that leaving the European Union may have  major effect on the ease of travel using the Pet Passport and on dog welfare, with potential changes to import and export restrictions. According to government figures for 2015, just under 92,000 Britains left and returned to Britain with one or more dogs, the vast majority having been on holiday. Of course there are also unrecorded numbers of dogs entering illegally, mostly traded as puppies. A Dogs Trust report (The Puppy Scandal) states that between 2011 and 2013 the number of dogs entering the UK legally from Lithuania increased by 780% and from Hungary 663%.

Already vets in Eastern Europe (and possible elsewhere) have colluded with dog dealers and issued pet passports with falsified data, including puppies not seen, under age puppies, dogs banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act and dogs with false
vaccination stamps indicating that rabies vaccinations had been administered. As the Dogs Trust wonders, will a vet who is prepared to falsify rabies vaccinations bother with tapeworm treatment or measures to prevent other diseases? Echinococcus multilocularis is a cyclophyllid tapeworm that is endemic in some countries that are parts of the PETS travel scheme. It is zoonotic, often asymptomatic for several years and can be fatal if untreated. It is already increasing in urban areas, largely due to the spread of urban foxes. Dogs Trust and journalists including Sam Poling have provided evidence revealing ineffective controls at UK border ports enabling puppies to enter the UK illegally virtually unhindered. There are no Animal and Plant Health Agency staff or Trading Standards personnel on duty at the main ports of entry at the weekend and puppy transporters are rarely stopped even during the week. Not all ports have a continual presence of officers, including the major port of Dover which just has APHA staff on call to respond to reported welfare concerns. There is no penalty if they are caught travelling with incorrect paperwork and the likelihood of paperwork being questioned or their vehicle searched is low. They can declare up to five puppies and smuggle in any number of puppies hidden in their vehicle which will remain unchecked. There is little or no sharing of intelligence amongst key agencies.

The Dogs Trust filmed 15 dealers who sold underage puppies ranging from 7 -12 weeks and who stated how easy it is to bring banned pit bulls into the UK and four vets from Lithuania and two vets from Hungary who admitted falsifying pet passports. They purchased pet passports from a vet that recorded false birth dates and vaccinations, including rabies, for fictitious puppies. They purchased a puppy from an online advert that had been brought into the UK from Lithuania at just ten weeks old without a rabies vaccination and two puppies in Hungary from a breeder who provided passports with false dates
of birth and fake rabies vaccination details which they subsequently rehomed in Hungary.

The Dogs Trust has called for the European Union to manage the spread of canine diseases across member states including requiring inspections of all puppies and dogs at member states’ borders. They are also calling for EU-wide improvements in breeding standards and mandatory identification and registration across all EU Member States. There is a the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals, but Britain is not a signatory. Leaving the European Union may make it harder for dogs to be imported from unscrupulous people in member states but it will also be much harder to achieve the spread of effective welfare legislation. In the meantime, diseases have no respect for national boundaries, even on islands.

One would hope that no one would make such a vital decision based on the effects on dogs alone, but there is plenty of food for thought there nonetheless.

Summer Solstice Lychee and Dog Meat Festival

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stop Yulin The China Kennel Union and its partners have been working on the design and implementation of various campaigns aiming to make Chinese legislation address animal welfare issues. There have been several initiatives aimed at dogs, including establishing winter housing facilities for strays and aiming to stamp out the practice of dog meat eating festivals, especially Yunin. Several charity events have been run between March and May, culminating in the establishment of the Anti-abuse to Animals Legislation Network Vote Platform prompting more than 150,000 people to cast their votes.

The Companion Animals Cultural Exhibition will be implemented nationwide from May to October, with an exhibition planned for June. The last ten days of June are scheduled as the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, an important focus of the activities.