Observing that “any dog can become ferocious”, the High Court of Karnataka told the Central government that it is necessary to issue certain guidelines for “responsible pet ownership” through rules framed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
“It is not only those dogs which are branded ferocious that can indulge in inflicting harm upon human beings or animals in the surrounding. Any dog can become ferocious. A dog bite is a dog bite, be it from a branded ferocious dog or any other dog. An appropriately constituted committee should delve upon the concept of responsible pet ownership to be protected, and irresponsible pet ownership to be penalised,” the court observed.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna made the suggestions in his recent order quashing a circular imposing ban on 23 ferocious and dangerous dog breeds by the Centre through in the absence of such power available in the law to impose blank ban on dog breeds.
Act responsibly
“It is not that a Pitbull or American bulldog or any other pet dog is a dog that is roaming in the streets. It is a dog owned by pet owners. Pet owners would become solely responsible for the act of their dogs, if they are ferocious or dangerous, as pet owners have kept them despite their characteristic being projected... they should act responsibly,” the court observed.
Responsible pet ownership, the court said must emerge as a sine qua non to pet ownership, as it is in public domain that dogs are more likely to become aggressive when they are unsupervised, unnurtured, and not socially conditioned to live closely with human beings and other dogs/animals
The court also pointed out that a blanket psychological thought process of this kind cannot and will not lead to any solution to the problem. It is for the dog owners to act responsibly that their pets would not harm any other citizen/other living beings in the vicinity or anywhere.
To bring in laws
These are the factors that will have to be deliberated upon by the Central government while bringing in any law to ban certain breeds, the court said, while pointing out that dog ban is not alien to any country in the globe, but such actions, be it breed specific ban or breed specific restrictions, were taken through promulgation of legislations in countries like Canada, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Spain, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and USA.
