my neighbour walks her staff of the lead it keeps chasing my cat and nearly got him twice,i am sure he will rip my cat to bits as he did a squirrel on the local green if he should catch him, me and several others have asked nicely if she could keep him on a lead while in our close but she still  does it, what can i do ?

In the first instance, contact you local council dog warden.

It's a difficult call though, as some dog wardens are well worth their meagre pay [city I used to live in, DW was not just a qualified dog trainer, but did agility and HWTM and also helped to organise dog sport events across the south of England... Now that's someone you could really trust, who understood dogs AND their owners].

Others are invisible, as the one supposedly covering the rural area I now live in.

If you are in Scotland the law has now change there, to cover animals injured by dogs including cats. This hasn't happened in England yet so I don't know what result you'd get from reporting it to the police, but if your cat did get injured you could still take them to court privately under the Dogs Act.

If at any time you personally felt scared by this dog and you thought it might attack you (forget the cat and the squirrel), then the Dangerous Dogs Act section 3 applies, as in Any dog 'Dangerously out of control in a public place'.

Fact is that unless you live on a private estate it is against the law to have the dog off the lead on a public road, so not just the DW but the Police should have a word in her ear as well. If this dog is running loose and chases cats then one day it will run into the road where I will endanger the health of a motorist or other road used. Report her, someone one official will (should) have a word.

>If you are in Scotland the law has now change there, to cover animals injured by dogs including cats. This hasn't happened in England yet so I don't know what result you'd get from reporting it to the police, but if your cat did get injured you could still take them to court privately under the Dogs Act.

Like MsTemeraire says, if you are in Scotland the new laws are being taken very seriously and lots of court cases have taken place.  A staffy was recently put down in my area for catching and injuring a cat.

As a first port of call I would always advise speaking to the owner but as you have already done that the dog warden is your next port of call.

thank you all for your advice

> Like MsTemeraire says, if you are in Scotland the new laws are being taken very seriously and lots of court cases have taken place.  A staffy was recently put down in my area for catching and injuring a cat.

Really?  :-O  Was it a repeat offender?  That seems very harsh to me!

>Really?  <img alt=":-o" src="/images/default/sml_ooh.png" class="sml" />  Was it a repeat offender?  That seems very harsh to me!

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/Dundee/article/16311/charity-joins-efforts-to-save-condemned-dundee-dog-c-jay.html  He caught a cat but didn't kill it and 10 months later the ruling was that he should be killed.  They way the family were treated was disgusting too, they were told it would cost them nearly £150 to get his ashes but they couldn't afford it so they got his body back in a plastic bag.  He was in a rug in the bag but the story in the paper about that makes me cry every time I read it.

Desptie this I would say it is still how the law is interpreted as I had involvement with the dog wardens (in a neighbouring area to the one above) and it was a fairly positive experience as the wardens were fair and took a very reasonable position on the complaints that had been made against me, so its not all bad.

Looking at the link and subsequent comments did this dog have previous 'form' and had been known by the police for attacks on humans and other dogs or is this just alleged comments ?

It was all alleged.  There was mention of an incident when a staff was loose in the area but there was no evidence that it was this dog.  I don't know the family or the dog but know businesses the family frequent and they say the dog was lovely and never a threat.

It's such a lottery with the courts, C-jay was pts for attacking a cat, yet there's a link on the article to a dog who attacked a person and was spared in Arbroath. Where's the sense ?.