I won’t waffle in this one, well not as much as I normally do…

• Dogs must NOT be allowed to be ‘dangerously out of control’ in a public place. This means injuring someone or making someone fear they may be injured. It applies to any breed or type of dog. In cases where NO injury is caused, owners can still go to prison for 6 months, be fined up to £5,000, be banned from owning pets and have their dog destroyed. (Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, section 3)

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• Local authorities have the power to introduce orders requiring all dogs to be kept on a lead in public spaces, such as sports pitches, roads, parks and beaches. (Road traffic act 1988, section 27; Anti social behaviour, crime and policing act 2014.

• Your local authority has the power to introduce public space protection orders to curb dog fouling, including requiring dog owners to pick up after their dogs in certain areas or requiring owners to carry poo bags on them at all times. Owners can be issued with a £100 fixed penalty notice for not complying. (Enivironmental Protection act 1990, Litter Order 1991, Anti social behaviour, crime and policing act 2014)

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Now time for a bit of waffle…because I can’t resist! So I did this post because at my first training session with Cooper, the trainer went over the ‘dangerous dog act’ law, and to be honest, I found it scary how strict and potentially open for abuse it is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally behind this law- it needs to be in place. But the wording of ‘making someone fear they may be injured,’ is pretty ambiguous.

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I’d like to think that people wouldn’t abuse this in regards to reporting people to the police, but as our trainer pointed out, even if you only have a chihuahua the size of a rabbit, if it jumps up and barks at someone, they could technically claim that they ‘feared they would be injured’ and voila, you’ve been reported to the police!

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The main thing I took away from his advice is DO NOT let your dog out on a long leash/off lead if there is a risk that they will approach other people, and always keep puppies on a tight leash around other people as well. It’s hard, especially with puppies. On one hand everyone who you know greets them and lets them jump up at them, but then when you get them out the house they’re expected to understand that they can’t jump up and greet all this other new humans. It’s something that’s still very much a working progress with Cooper but we’re getting there. In the meantime, if we see someone coming our way I make sure he’s on a lead short enough that if he does say hello, he won’t be able to get close enough to say it physically!