Spain's Dangerous Dog Act Fails

Spain's Dangerous Dog Act Fails

The following findings were published in the Journal of Veterinary Behaviour - Sept. 07 - Vol. 2, Issue 5 authored by Belen Rosado, DVM, PhD, Sylvia Garcia-Beleguer, DVM, PhD, Marta Leon, DVM, PhD, and Jorge Palacio, DVM, PhD.

Their study was conducted in a country where annual rabies vaccination is mandatory so the popluation studied "highly mirrored" the actual dog population.

They state:

"In the present study, dog bite-related incidents from Aragón (Spain) were analyzed for a 10-year periods (1995 to 2004). With the aim of assessing the impact of the Spanish Dangerous Animals Act on the epidemiology of dog bites, data from the non-legislated (1995 to 1999) and the legislated period (2000 to 2004) were compared in 2 different areas (low- and high-populated areas). According to the results, the population density did exert a significant effect on the incidence of dog bites, whereas the legislation in force did not.

Popular breeds such as the German shepherd and crossbreed dogs accounted for the great majority of the incidents during the 2 periods of study. Specifically, the German shepherd proved to be over-represented significantly among the canine population.

Dogs in the dangerous breeds list, on the other hand, were involved in a small proportion of the incidents both before and after the introduction of legislation.

The present results suggest that the implementation of the Spanish legislation exerted little impact on the epidemiology of dog bites. Besides the scarce effectiveness, the results suggest that the criteria to regulate only so-called DB were unsuitable and unjustified. It is hoped that this study will be helpful in the elaboration of future regulation measures in this matter".

"Canine aggression directed toward people has given rise to an enormous interest both in the media and in the scientific literature during the last 2 decades. Moreover, the problem has pervaded political spheres and several countries in Europe, North America, and Australia have regulated dog ownership with the aim of reducing the number of people injured by dog bites and prevent new episodes (Butcher et al., 2002, Ledger et al., 2005, Collier, 2006).

Two kinds of legislation have been developed in this regard. The first type of legislation is

Breed Specific Legislation (BSL), which is based on a series of regulations, including banning

measures, applied to the so-called “dangerous breeds” (DB).

It is thought that the elaboration of DB lists has been influenced to a large extent by biases in the media and the subsequent social alarm in response to fatal dog attacks.

The second type of legislation, non-Breed Specific Legislation (nBSL), includes different regulation measures to promote responsible dog ownership regardless of the animal breed".

"According to several studies based on data from both hospitals and public health departments,

the so-called Dangerous Breeds contribute to only a few of the dog bite-related incidents (Kahn et al., 2003, León, 2006). This finding contradicts the belief that these breeds are more dangerous and discredits DB lists".

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