Human and Dog Conflict – New!!!

Posted by admin | Posted in Articles | Posted on 14-05-2012

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I really sympathize for the victim and his family involved in the recent dog attack incident. Though there are few sincere and honest people out there trying to help. I must admit most are either trying to seek cheap publicity or make money out of this situation. We hear all kinds of comments about the breed, training undergone, etc about the dog related on this incident. But many fail to realize or perhaps are ignorant that a dog is an animal. Dogs do not have a reasoning faculty. They are intelligent because they are able to learn commands taught by human and remember it. And the willingness to learn and abide by the human master is what makes them apart in the animal kingdom. Like any other animal they either act by instinct or conditioning. Both of this is determined by the character of that animal which varies from one to another. A human can go through all the training in the world, but when faced with the situation it depends on the stability of character as to whether he is going to apply whatever he learnt. A dog is not different in many ways. Training works well only when a human is by the side to command the dog. Pedigree dogs for generation are bred for their best ability to listen and act on human commands and only when the dog is by the side of the human. No dog is sent to work without the company of a human. So all dogs left by itself will call its shot on how to act. This is what happened in this situation. Pointing at a breed is like pinpointing to a particular human race and concluding the behaviour of that race.

This could easily happen to a mongrel or even a stray. The problem with stray is that we do not have an owner to blame plus it’s not one of the sensational banned or restricted breed for all medias to give coverage. Many attacks from toy breeds in homes and strays in the street go unreported due to the damage being insignificant or absence of accountable party. We really do not know what had caused this dog to act this way. Is it the dog?, the senior citizen?, the environment? or all put together? Even the victim is not here anymore to give his side of the story. We do not have much information about the history to solve this mystery. If you ask me the dog has not done something wrong. It did the right thing but in the wrong place. If the dog bit the person inside the house, would the situation be as bad as it is now. I take it one step further, if the dog had killed a robber inside the house, would that be bad? The answer is with the reader of this article. Looking ahead, we should take a scientific approach by monitoring the behaviour pattern of this dog under different situations and documenting the outcome. A task meant for serious and professional trainers and animal behaviorist. This would provide valuable information to work backwards to understand the real reasons for this vicious attack. For time being the owners have to be held responsible as it was an animal in their care that was allowed to run loose and cause all these mess. At least that is the best we can do because their conduct is clear evidence violating the clauses in the Municipal By-Law.

But I can’t deny that the municipals are not doing enough to curb the problem from the start. Even today when I was driving in Petaling Jaya, I found dogs running around the jogger’s track and dogs standing in front of few houses. This could be strays or even pets. It is not safe at all for people or other dogs to be walked in that area as it poses a situation due to territorial instinct for dog fights where the dogs can turn around and attack humans as well. We can register the dogs, regulate breeders, register trainers, but is it going to prevent another human from being attacked? Municipal council must be pro-active by doing rounds to reprimand irresponsible owners. But if the owners remain adamant, laws must be in place to impose an extremely heavy penalty. Only then you can get people to comply. Then the problem is arrested at the root itself. That is the solution.

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