just brought a lovely plastic gate sign with a gs dog on it, and in big red writting it says intruders beware then the pic of a gsd.
is this ok or am i asking for trouble as i was told.
if you advertise a beware sign it is telling people they have something to fear as in getting bitten?
This is not the case i just want to warn folk that gsd's live at home and they come in knowing.
mainly as a deterent for intruders burglars etc?

A major problem with signs like that is apparently it advertises that you have valuable dogs which might be worth stealing ... :( My breed club has advised us all to remove any signs like that because so many dogs are being stolen each year.

At the beginning of most video rentals appears the ditty "Beware illegal video cassettes" should one infer from this that they are dangerous?

A sign does not imply that you have a dangerous dog however it does advertise the presence of one which may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view!

It is irrelevant if you have a sign or not if your dog bites anyone I am afraid; you can be sued just the same.

so for example i have the sign clearly stating intruders beware then the pic of a gsd. they ignore it come into my back garden and try to break in, dog sees them bites them, i get sued?
if this is right it is really pathetic.
considering when i went a few years ago ,to west palm beach florida to relations, they had a gun under there bed for protection and a sign saying we are armed against intruders, that is legal over there.
as for advertising the fact i have a gsd to robbers they would know that as the dogs both jump up at the window giving it all the barks they can so they would see i have a gsd and a border c anyway.
this countrry stinks

believe you can get sued i'm afraid

when you have worked very hard to get yourself all the things you want in your home, and a burglar breaks in, if they get caught by your dogs irrelevant of what breed and they get bit then good on the dog.
it makes me sick sick sick to hear about how you can be in trouble if the burglar gets hurt.
I f i was out with my stick or crutches and i got jumped, if i hit out and hurt the attacker i would be up for assault.
this country needs to relook at their issues of self protection and rights of the individual.
its not fair
sam

A year ago I young thug tried to mug me. Silly boy it was Friday night Id had the day from saturns bottom, it was 9.30pm and Id been at work since 7am. I fought back a bopped him one.  So he reported me. But there was warrant out for his arrest, so they arrested him. But Monday morning the police came in and warned me that this behaviour is against the law.

I agree rules in this country STINK  You can be sued if someone was about to kill you and your dog stoped them but sank his teeth in :( Its really really sad!

Rox

But Sam - you can always act in self defence after fearing for your own safety :)  And Michelle is right about the sign.  I'm afraid it's the word 'beware' as it implies you have an animal that is a danger and you know it.  Apparently 'Be Aware' is Ok but 'Beware' isn't.  Mad, mad, mad, mad world we live in. :)

We have had this debate many times on the forum before.  Any sign that say Beware of the Dog does NOT imply that you have a dangerous dog and would have NO bearing on whether you were sued for your dog biting you; this is a confirmed legal fact. 

One of the reasons a lot of residents have been told to remove barbed wire from along the top of their walls is because it might cause injury to a burglar!

Technically you are liable if your dog bites another person whether it is someone putting their hand in your car, entering your house uninvited etc etc.  How it is handled depends on a lot of things.  I do not agree with this but this is the way things are. 

Hate to disagree with you but there was a case two years ago where the judge ruled that the word 'Beware' implied knowledge of the danger and the owner was found guilty.  Don't know what discussions have gone on in here but it does make a difference once a precedent has been set.  :)

And I think barbed wire and glass on walls was to stop innocent kids getting hurt - not particularly the burglers.  Although admittedly, some fall into both categories.  :)

Perhaps this will help from a previous discussion!

I'm aware that this topic keeps raising it's ugly head & I did promise to do some investigating & find out the definitive answer. For those in the dark, there has been much talk of whether a 'Beware of the dog sign' is an admission of knowledge that your dog is dangerous/liable to bite someone & makes you more liable to prosecution/payment of damages should someone trespassing upon your private property then be attacked by your dog.

Today, I had a long chat with the Crown Prosecution Service. The prosecuters sit in the office next door, so I interrupted a very important meeting & demanded to know the answer so that I could pass it on to you folks. Luckily, they took it on the chin & proceeded to get quite excited about finding the answer. As no such case regarding dog signs was in existence, they discussed it using other similar cases for guidance, their own knowledge of the law & their own prosecuting experience.

After a long debate with the learned folk and much talk of: "...well, I think you'll find in Smellybotton versus Stinkybutt that the appeal was dismissed as despite chasing the postman down the street, the rottweiler was proved to be a friendly dog that just wanted to play. The Judge held that just because the postman fell over in his haste to get away, this was not the rottweiler's fault" (and that was an actual case) We dragged up similar relevant cases in books & on the system & the jury came back unanimous with thus:

If you put a sign upon your garden gate forewarning people that you have dogs that you need to beware of, or are running free, in conjunction with the usual 'Do not enter' underneath, you have gone over & above your duty of care to advise the general public of the dangers in entering your private property. A 'Beware of the Dog' sign does not further your liability it is the entirely the opposite. Of course there are some situations i.e. when a child wanders in not having understood the sign when you MAY be made to pay damages as a result of them being injured on your property, but they were insistent that if this were the case then the persons in charge of the child would also be asked questions about THEIR duty of care & why the child wasn't supervised etc. This may result in the case being dismissed.
In the worst scenario, the sign would be used as a mitigating circumstance, i.e. to lower the damages you would have to pay someone because, due to the existence of such a sign, you can prove beyond all reasonable doubt that you have not been negligent in your duty of care.

Please note: There were NO cases in existence in all the case law books available (published 2002) or on the computer (updated bi-anually) about a 'Beware of the dog sign' furthering your liability.

The prosecutor's were very interested to know how the rumour got started. They also asked that if there were still people insisting that dog signs make you liable, to ask those people to provide the name of the case they are referring to or to provide their source of their information. Unbelievably, they were quite keen to research it further if necessary, which is extremely generous of them considering they are extremely busy peeps & their job is to prosecute people like us - not help us out!

Hope that answers a few questions. I've still got my 'Beware' sign up!

Lady G

Wow!  My information also came from CPS!!  All prison dog handlers, police dog handlers and I understand other government agencies have issued advice about these signs following the case to which I refer.

Now, my law books are up to date and I shall plough through them and try and find the stated case to which I refer.  Please bear with me as there's a lot to get through and some of the books are at work but I'll find it and let you know.

Joe :)

Wouldn't worry too much about conflicting information.  You don't have to be connected in any way to legalities in this country to know how fickle they can be :rolleyes:
Lara x

i think if you imply your dog may be dangerous & if it bites then you may be liable because YOU KNEW it might!
i know this isnt your intention of the sign!

even signs like" i live here" could be a target for dog thieves!!! so be careful

Just to put a lighter note on this subject my hubby bought me sign to put on our house

"Sod the dogs beware of the kids"

Everyone thinks it's really funny but they haven't met my kids on a really bad day :-o

Sod the dog and kids, beware the husband!!!!

now that is one for the future!!!

Rox

LOL!!!!!!!!

Good one ice-queen.  When did you meet my hubby then??? :-)

Hi GSD Sam,
We have had many squirmishes over this issue. We lived in a dreadful area once and I had 2 GSDs,the kids in the area (total thugs)used to hang over the back fence and tease them until they went off their heads. I hasten to add they were lovely dogs and needed to go out only once aday for their business! Other times they went into the car and down to the beach for their excercise. I actually asked the police that came around regularly, what would happen if my dogs bit the little thugs, he said, although they were in the wrong, I would be prosecuted for letting my dogs be out of control in a public place (albeit they were in their own back garden!!!!!!!) I now live in a very remote place and have 1 GSD and 1 Briard and have a sign up saying "Caution, our dogs bite" they are fenced in, when they are in the garden, but not when they are wandering in our yard (we live on a farm) I am often alone here at night and the dogs would bite without a second thought (especially the GSD) What should i do, let them bite without any thought for the morons that come up here (they are always trying to steal some farm machinery) or keep them in and risk getting beaten up "because I may be liable to prosecution????????) I know which i prefer. But if the risk is my dogs being destroyed i would risk my life! What a bureaucratic country we live in!!!!!!!!!!!

totally agree with you, despite this countrys LAWS for example if i awoken to the sound of a burglar in my home and the dogs did also, my first thought would be the safety of my kids, i would hope that the dogs get to the culprit otherwise i would do anything possible to protect myself the kids and the rest of my family including the dogs.
if i saw my mum getting mugged i would step in and hit out, years ago on a playing field where i used to live a man had a stick and was hitting his dog, i went over and wacked my own dogs lead round his face, i would do the same for anyone or animal in distress or harms way and fingers up to this bloody law.
anyway if my dogs did bite an intruder i would just give my name as HRH anne..................

The problem with these signs is not so much to do with the CPS it's more in cases where a private prosecution is bought & someone is suing for damages..
Many years ago I do know of a case where civil action was bought against someone when their dog bit while out walking and a picture of their house was shown in the court, it had a Beware of The  Dog sign and this was taken as an admission that they knew the dog would bite.

Ingrid

Ingrid,

I expect that would be the difference in a Beware sign.

If the dog bit someone, Beware could be interpreted to mean that the only knew they owned a dangerous dog.
If the dog knocked someone down accidently in friendly enthusiasm to greet a stranger, then the the same sign could be interpreted as Be - Aware that there is a dog.

Case law is established case by case, history is not the sole determinant of a ruling on an individual situation.  

Stacey

Hello chaps

I'm late to the party as usual.
I've been puzzling about this one for ages. I was in town last week and I went into the local police station to ask, I thought if anyone should know its the police. Well, what a laugh... I explained my dilemma and ended up with 6 officers all trying to work it out.

They told me that putting a 'Beware of the dog sign' on your gate doesn't necessarily imply that your dog is vicious, in fact it would be down to the judge in a civil court to decide if you were liable or not.  They also made a point that if you did NOT have a sign up at all, you could, in theory still be liable, because you didn't tell anyone that there were dogs at the premises.

At the end of the conversation, which lasted about 1/2 hour, they advised me that if I put up a sign, putting Be Aware, rather than Beware, should cover me in the case of liability if something was to happen.

So my new signs will probably read:

'Be Aware- dogs running freely- Do not enter!

That should cover it.

They also added, that putting pictures of your breed on the sign, could work for you or against you. If there are dog-stealers in your area after specific breeds, then you are advertising the fact that you have these breeds.

At the end of the day, unless you actually put 'I have a big, dog that will bite you if you tresspass' its all up to the individual judge on the day whether he thinks you are liable or not.

This probably hasn't helped-sorry, but I thought I'd let you know my police's view on it.
Cheers
Ali :)

Ali,

next time you pass the station, go in and ask six different officers the same question.  I guarentee that you will get six different answers!  :)

Joe,

I have to admit, that I felt a bit guilty about using up their time for 1/2 hour, I think that they must have all been on their lunchbreak:) 

6 officers....30 minutes.... and what did they come up with?  3 sentences!

Never mind....at least they tried.

Ali:)

:D @ Ali.  They'll have gone for a lie down after you left :D :D

The ideal situation of course is to train your dogs that biting, like anything else, should only be performed when given permission!

Hi Tohme,
Yes I agree with you, but what happens if you are not on the premises when some low life gets in and your dogs are waiting for the command to bite?? Or they are trying to protect you as you have been knocked out and rendered speechless, what then??

right .. or when some idiot enters your property and teases or hurts your dog?