Banning aggressive dogs is absurd even if dog kills human being

A Pit Bull dog attacked and killed its owner in the city of Nizhnevatorsk, in Russia’s north. The tragedy took place on Sunday, December 7, when the man, the dog’s owner, invited his friends to come and visit him for drinks and snacks. When the dog bit the man by his leg, the guests thought that the pet was simply playing with its owner. The next minute the dog jumped down his throat.

Photo: Banning aggressive dogs is absurd even if dog kills human being

“It was impossible to pull the dog away. The Pit Bull was clinging to the man’s throat and caused severe injuries to him. The man was dead when the ambulance and forensic experts arrived,” a police officer said.

The State Duma of the Russian Federation considered a bill about domestic animals, particularly dogs in 2007. The bill categorized home pets into ‘aggressive’ and ‘non-aggressive’ and stipulated their keeping and breeding rules. The author of the bill, Rustem Shiyanov, put forward a suggestion to introduce licenses for the right to keep, breed and sell aggressive dogs. Anyone, who is willing to have an aggressive dog, would be supposed to undergo a medical examination and collect the certificates, similar to those that need to be obtained for the right to own a weapon. In addition, if an aggressive dog attacks someone and causes someone severe bodily damage, the dog’s owner would have to face a prison term, not just a fine.

Cynologists stood strongly against the bill. The president of the International Federation for Cynological Sports, Yury Ostashenko, said that it would be absurd for law-makers to distinguish between aggressive and non-aggressive dogs.

The specialist said that the dog aggressiveness was a far-fetched problem as far as domestic dogs were concerned. “There are a lot more people out there dying as a result of car accidents than from dog bites. No one says that we need to ban our Lada cars just because of the fact that their breaking distance is longer than that of a BMW. A rottweiler, for instance, is the sweetest dog if it is raised correctly, of course. Any talks about dogs being unpredictable animals are nothing but a pure myth. Even lapdogs can bite ,” the cynologist said.