Dangerous dogs or stupid owners?

‘Eaten alive’: Two women jailed for 12 months after their dog killed Liverpool pensioner Clifford Clarke

A Liverpool army veteran was “literally eaten alive” by a crazed dog that hadn’t been fed or watered for two days.

Defenceless Clifford Clarke, 79, was mauled to death in the back garden of his Clubmoor home by his neighbour’s starving pet in May last year.

The dog’s owners, mum-of-one Della Woods and Hayley Sulley, both 30, were jailed for one year as a court was told how the presa canario breed, called Charlie, was left to swelter without shade on one of the hottest days of the year.

The animal was so hungry in the hours before attacking Mr Clarke that it attempted to devour a plastic bowl, bird food and cigarette butts.

A neighbour who saw the pet in her garden “snarling” and “foaming at the mouth” called Liverpool council’s dog wardens only to be told it would take four hours for them to attend.

A neighbour heard Mr Clarke yell “get off me” before seeing the animal savage the former athlete and hospital worker.

The dog was so agitated when police arrived that it tried to bite the end of a rifle used to kill it. And after being shot once, it got up and tried to attack again…

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpool-women-jailed-12-months-7208461

Definitely very stupid owners, in this case anyway. Tests showed that the dog hadn’t been fed for at least 45 hours; meanwhile its owners had gone to a barbecue…

There have been calls for dogs to be muzzled in public – if they were muzzled then people would know that they were safe, although I heard one idiot on the radio this morning complain that he wouldn’t muzzle his dog because it would make it look silly…! Someone else insisted that his dog wouldn’t be able to defend itself, although if all dogs were muzzled…

If you’ve ever run or jogged then you know that dogs will come at you; they may not always get to you let alone attack, but it can be just as scary and the owners NEVER appear to appreciate that fact. ‘Ignore him, he’s just a big softy’ is not the kind of language that you want to hear when you have a large dog in an attack pose snarling at you. And if it does aggressively jump at you and you respond then the owner can try to get you arrested for abusing an animal (for example, last summer I witnessed a boy playing football in a park lay a thump on the head of an Alsatian that was barking and snarling at him, trying to get the ball he was holding. The owner ran up and wanted to drag the kid off to the police, but several onlookers – me included – pointed out that the dog was being a nuisance, was off its lead where there was a playground and had already had a go at others; dog and owner stomped off claiming they were off to the police – but we heard nothing more), extreme maybe but it is not an unusual scenario.

Similarly there have been calls for the reintroduction of the dog license, maybe with the fee in the region of £150, with the idea that there should be dog insurance etc. About time, or overkill?

What say you?