Brian Rudman: Let's get deadly serious with these savage beasts

We're a weird lot. When a little caterpillar starts gobbling up a few West Auckland wattle trees, it's red-alert time. Tens of thousands of Aucklanders are doused in a $90 million insecticide blitz.

A crank call claiming to have let loose a few possums on Kapiti Island had conservation shock troops rushing to protect the trees and birds' eggs.

Yet when it comes to dogs, we're happy to see killer breeds loose in suburbia, free to rip the face of an unsuspecting kiddie, or attack an old lady minding her own business on a suburban street.

And when the guardians of these killing machines are brought to justice, the results are risible.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the woman responsible for a pit bull which felled a 74-year-old Havelock North woman, savaging her five times on her legs and putting her in hospital for a week, was ordered by Judge Tony Adeane to pay the victim a derisory $750 for emotional reparation, plus $350 for medical and legal costs.

On Friday 7-year-old Carolina Anderson was the victim of an appalling attack in Cox's Bay Reserve, Westmere. This came close on the heels of South Auckland posties temporarily refusing to deliver mail in some Otara streets and reports that organised pit bull fights are a regular sideshow in Manurewa reserves.

Dog nuts, of course, blame the owners of the offending dogs, not the breed. But you only have to read the websites of pit bull and staffordshire fanatics to appreciate that aggression has been bred into these dogs and their ancestors for centuries.

The pit bull is descended from British dogs used for bull-baiting and when that sadistic pastime was banned in 1835, the breeders, to quote from one fan site, who "appreciated the fierceness, courage and tenacity of the bull dog, turned their attentions to breeding dogs for dog fighting".

Backyard interbreeding has led to what SPCA prosecutor Jim Boyd calls "genetic time bombs" and "loaded guns" roaming our streets.

Yet when these beasts attack someone, as they regularly do, they seem to have more rights than a human assailant. Under weak legislation, they can't be seized unless they have already attacked a person or animal and a witness is prepared to give evidence.

Three years ago, then Waitakere MP Brian Neeson introduced a bill to ban pit bulls. Nothing happened. Since December 2000, Rotorua MP Steve Chadwick has been pushing a private bill for stronger powers for animal control staff.

Her bill gives them the power to seize potentially dangerous dogs, so officers may enter private property to pursue a dog that has attacked or rushed someone on public property.

It's a common sense first step, but the Government has not yet seen the need to back it. You wonder how many more people will have to be maimed and attacked before sanity prevails?

I'm for the Neeson treatment. Exterminate the whole breed - and anything that looks like one just to be safe. Pit bulls, staffordshire terriers, anything that barks at me and looks menacing.

Dog fanatics say it's unfair to ban a whole breed, that not all of them are vicious. Well, tough. It's better to be safe than sorry. They are only dogs, after all. What is this nonsense about dogs anyway, this ridiculous notion that they have "rights" akin or comparable in any way to human rights?

Why have we decided that dogs have rights to live in suburbia but that chooks, for instance, do not? At least chooks are useful. They produce eggs. And when did they last attack anyone?

Yet they've long since been hounded out of Ponsonby and Pakuranga.

Statistics on dog attacks are hard to come by. The latest national figures available from police reveal 632 attacks in 1996 and 920 in 1994. That's a huge number.

If any other one factor was to blame for that many assaults or injury to persons, the police, Occupational Safety and Health, the Labour Department and a dozen crusading politicians would be falling over each other demanding action.

Think of the fireworks ban. It took only a handful of injuries to persuade the politicians to ban double-happy bangers. Contrast that with the softly-softly approach with dogs.

The present clamour seems to be directed at bad owners. Fair enough, but the trouble with that approach is that by the time you identify a bad owner, his beast has already maimed.

To be sure, euthanasing - to use the polite word - the bad owner, or neutering him, might have a salutary effect. But easier, and more effective, is to employ these techniques on the suspect breeds and remove the problem at source.

The expression "it's a dog's life" is meant to indicate that these animals are here at our sufferance. It's about time we put some meaning back into the phrase.