Delegate Wants to Limit Dog-Chaining
A Virginia legislator seeks restrictions on pet owners
who chain their dogs, saying change would cut canine aggression.
By MICHAEL ZITZ -- The
Free Lance Star
December
12 , 2006
RICHMOND--Does
chaining make Fido fierce?
Fewer
children might be maimed and killed in dog attacks if we treat "man's
best friend" as a member of the family, a Virginia legislator
says.
Algie
T. Howell Jr., a Democratic delegate from Norfolk, will introduce
a bill in the General Assembly next month that would make it illegal
for pet owners to chain their dogs for more than three hours a day.
The
state of California passed a similar law in September.
"Chaining
a dog is not only inhumane," Howell said, "but, in my
view, makes the dog more aggressive."
His
contention is supported by a recent study authored in part by the
federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. It
showed that chained dogs are nearly three times more likely to attack.
The
victims are most often children. In 2002, according to the CDC,
chained dogs killed as many children as gun accidents.
And
a 1994 study authored by the CDC concluded that, "Biting dogs
were significantly more likely to be chained."
Since
2003, the media has reported 104 Americans being injured or killed
by chained dogs--75 percent of the victims children. The actual
number may be higher, those opposed to chaining say, because police
reports and news accounts sometimes omit details about tethering.
"Chaining
dogs makes them more aggressive--the shorter the chain, the greater
the aggression," said Nicholas H. Dodman, a Ph.D. in veterinary
medicine at Tufts University in Grafton, Mass.
Dodman,
author of the book "Dogs Behaving Badly," is director
of the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts.
He
said in a telephone interview that keeping dogs inside as part of
a family unit greatly reduces the chance of attacks. Chaining dogs--naturally
social animals--induces "isolation-induced aggression, "
and creates a "junkyard dog" effect, he said.
"They
basically go mad," Dodman said, when chained for extended periods
of time.
People
for Ethical Treatment of Animals in Norfolk has launched a TV public
service announcement taped by Virginia Beach resident Alice Conner,
whose 2-year-old cousin Jonathan Martin of Suffolk was killed in
October 2005 by his family's chained dog.
In
the PSA, Conner says: "Jonathan had no idea how dangerous chained
dogs could be. For your family's sake--and for your dog's--don't
chain your dog."
"I
feel it's my obligation to call for legislation," she said
in an interview.
Before
the family had begun chaining the dog, Jonathan had often ridden
on its back.
Then,
after a long period of being chained and neglected, the dog killed
the toddler "because he was hungry and wanted a bowl of cereal
Jonathan had," Conner said in the interview.
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