It is ab­solute­ly scan­dalous that suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments, in­sti­tu­tions and peo­ple of this coun­try have al­lowed dogs, aid­ed and abet­ted by their own­ers, to kill and se­ri­ous­ly in­jure peo­ple while all that is done is that many peo­ple get on the ra­dio and tele­vi­sion talk shows and bark their dis­ap­proval. Equal­ly ap­palling is the fact that the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Bill was passed by the Par­lia­ment in 2000 to force re­stric­tions on dogs and their own­ers and 11 years lat­er the leg­is­la­tion has not been as­sent­ed to. And it is not­ed here this is not the fault of His Ex­cel­len­cy the Pres­i­dent, who is re­quired to sign off on all leg­is­la­tion, but be­cause of nar­row po­lit­i­cal quib­bling. The pop­u­la­tion needs to make it clear to politi­cians of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and this has noth­ing to do with which par­ty the in­di­vid­ual de­cides to stain his/her fin­ger for on elec­tion day. But then again per­haps these are the kinds of very func­tion­al needs that cit­i­zens should take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion when de­cid­ing which po­lit­i­cal par­ty is de­serv­ing of their vote.

Here are a few un­think­ing, un­car­ing peo­ple and their sav­age un­con­trolled dogs plac­ing every­one who has to walk the streets un­der siege and the au­thor­i­ties do noth­ing.

Against the back­ground of the most re­cent vi­cious at­tacks, from the Prime Min­is­ter down and cer­tain­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the peo­ple on both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide are un­der the most se­vere re­quire­ment to do some­thing im­me­di­ate­ly about the threat posed to hu­man life by dan­ger­ous dogs. Sure­ly the pat­tern can't go on of every­one be­ing ag­i­tat­ed for the prover­bial nine days in the face of a cou­ple episodes of dogs killing and maim­ing peo­ple, in­clud­ing de­fence­less chil­dren, and then-af­ter a cou­ple of weeks of scream­ing and shout­ing and own­ers of the vi­cious dogs say­ing "sor­ry"-we go back to sleep and await the next out­burst. As Par­lia­ment sits to­day, as the Cab­i­net met yes­ter­day, leg­is­la­tors and ad­min­is­tra­tors must show they care enough to do a num­ber of things-and im­me­di­ate­ly-to have the leg­is­la­tion be­come law. But most of all, the day af­ter the pas­sage of the bill, the Gov­ern­ment must have in place the mech­a­nisms re­quired to op­er­a­tionalise the law. It can­not be that we al­low dog own­ers and their train­ers to be bark­ing at the rest of the so­ci­ety in con­tempt as they walk their an­i­mals out in pub­lic with­out the slight­est con­cern for the safe­ty of oth­ers.

The re­quire­ments of the law such as a muz­zle, a strong leash and an equal­ly able and re­spon­si­ble in­di­vid­ual hold­ing and guid­ing the an­i­mal must be ob­served. So too must dog own­ers have their premis­es very well bar­ri­cad­ed to pre­vent their an­i­mals from get­ting loose and at­tack­ing in­di­vid­u­als go­ing about their law­ful busi­ness. It is how­ev­er recog­nised that in the world of to­day, peo­ple on their premis­es must be en­ti­tled to have pro­tec­tion for them­selves and their prop­er­ty by hav­ing guard dogs, but they must do so in a re­spon­si­ble man­ner. Those who would in­vade the premis­es of oth­ers with no good in­ten­tion would cer­tain­ly have to face the con­se­quences of their ac­tions. But for cit­i­zens in the nor­mal course of their lives in pub­lic spaces, they have every right to ex­pect to do so with­out hav­ing to wor­ry about the next at­tack dog. The au­thor­i­ties al­so need to do some­thing about the im­por­ta­tion and breed­ing of these dan­ger­ous an­i­mals. And if the 2000 leg­is­la­tion is not strong enough, then im­ple­ment the Act and make the re­quired amend­ments. But be­yond the law, dog own­ers should take it up­on them­selves, in the face of the re­cent dead­ly as­saults on peo­ple, to be­come re­spon­si­ble own­ers. No law should be need­ed for an in­di­vid­ual to de­cide that he/she can­not put the life and limb of oth­ers at risk through their care­less at­ti­tudes.