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#ROY HATTERSLEY on aw that could turn every dog owner into a criminal

Guilty: Roy Hattersley's pet Buster (right) once killed a Royal goose - but he says the new law has flaws

There are no bad dogs —only bad owners. That was what I was brought up to believe. And I believe it still.

And that is why I welcomed, with great enthusiasm, the Government’s decision to introduce a new Dangerous Dogs Act and replace the foolish attempt to identify bad dogs with a sensible policy of rooting out bad owners.

The purpose of the new Act — which we should all applaud — is to protect the public against dogs which are taught to fight and kill, dogs which are driven wild by neglect, dogs which are taught to intimidate and dogs which so lack training and discipline that they are completely out of control.

But the bureaucrats of Whitehall possess a remarkable ability to make even the most sensible policy seem ridiculous. Under the law, which came into force this week, dog owners who simply let their animals growl at strangers or bark in gardens could be ordered to control their pets or face fines of up to £2,500.

What’s more, Whitehall has issued a 31-page ‘manual’ entitled Anti-Social Behaviour: Control And Welfare Of Dogs, which describes how the new Act works and includes an incomprehensible ‘flow chart’.

The truth is that the document shows every sign of having been written by a civil servant who has never owned a dog and, in consequence, has not the slightest idea about how dogs think and behave.

Of course, it was right to change the law in a way that made it possible to prosecute the owner of a dangerous dog, whether the animal attacks its victim on private property or the open road. And the manual, naturally, makes much of the need to protect postal workers.

But neither the Post Office itself nor the postal workers’ union has improved its popularity and reputation by behaving as if every dog is a threat and the delivery of every letter is an act of conspicuous gallantry. Indeed, the postman I know best is embarrassed by what he calls ‘all this dog fuss’ and stopped me in the road to say so — stroking my dog at the same time.

But the real complaint against the manual is its promotion of so-called Community Protection Orders — a name which might have been taken straight out of George Orwell’s 1984.

Police, council officers and social housing landlords can now issue these notices that force an owner to take action, such as attending dog behavioural classes, keeping an animal on a lead, muzzling it or having it neutered.

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Roy (left) says some parts of the manual might have been taken straight out of George Orwell’s 1984

Examples of the sort of canine behaviour from which the public must be protected, and for which the dog-owner must be punished, lead only to one conclusion: the vast majority of the country’s eight million dog owners are at risk daily of being slapped with a Community Protection Order.

For it seems that these orders were invented as part of a doomed attempt to stop dog behaving. like dogs.

I would certainly qualify for one. As readers with long memories will recall, 18 years ago, my then dog, Buster, when he was young and reckless, killed one of the Queen’s geese in London’s St James’s Park.

Natural born killer? Buster would have been slapped with a penalty for killing a Royal goose (pictured)

As for my current dog, he spends many a sunny afternoon in what he thinks of as his garden, barking at the dog on the other side of the hedge. That normal behaviour — believe it or not — is now classified as anti-social conduct!

I never thought I would complain of becoming a victim of the ‘nanny state’.

Not only are my neighbours sensible and civilised people. Their dog barks back at mine. If ever we were both to be prosecuted, one of us would give the other a lift to the courthouse door and the case would undoubtedly collapse.

Under the new law, Community Protection Orders are also to be issued when a dog’s behaviour is ‘having a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the community’.

Yet I fear that this law — which has so little relationship with the real word — is open to abuse by local busybodies. For, we are told, an order could simply be issued if a dog is ‘showing signs of problematic behaviour, such as non-responsive to calls’.

We should disregard this nonsense about ‘problematic behaviour’ as nothing more than Civil Service gobbledegook. But the idea that a dog which is ‘non-responsive to calls’ imperils the stability of the community is simply crazy.

Most dogs come when they are called — but not always the first or second time. Whenever I walk in the hills behind my house, the shouts and whistles of impatient owners will echo off the bracken. Yet my village remains peaceful and secure.

The next time I take a walk, I shall examine the condition of the village green. For the new dangerous dogs manual is particularly severe on anyone who allows their dog to ‘damage flower-beds and benches’ and I assume that publicly-owned grass, mowed at local residents’ expense, qualifies for similar protection.

If I see any signs of canine carnage, I shall not take the manual’s advice and provide local officials with details of the destruction ‘through photographic evidence and witness statements’.

You may think me lacking in public spirit. But I want to avoid the rest of the village seeing me collect the damning data and making the reasonable assumption that I have lost my senses.

There are more examples of normal canine conduct which apparently must be stamped out.