Please listen to this link and then email as you see fit.! The relevant item goes on a bit but if you forwand to about 2hrs 33mins you will hear what i am on about.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00mgvyz/James_Hazell_Show_07_01_2012/The presenter James Hazell has a show every saturday morning, He has a spot every week with a chap called Simon Warr called (appropriately) the Warr zone. SW is a teacher in a local private school. JH is one of the stations better presenters and -usually - talks a lot of common sense.
I tried ringing the station but only got as far as the person on the switchboard, I have also emailed JH to protest.
james.hazell@bbc.co.uk
is the email address.
Chris
I listened to about 10 minutes of this, I'm also wondering who the 'guest' was and his background in Canine Behaviour that he could describe, so simplistically how an E collar was some kind of magic wand device! I thought the presenter sounded suitably sceptical though!!
Discussions of this nature always cause my blood pressure to raise, when dogs are described as 'dangerous' not just because they can bite but also could run out into the road and cause an accident, or knock someone over etc. Yes they are unpredicatable - because they are animals!People seem to understand that a horse may bite or kick, a cat may scratch, rabbits do all three (all domesticated companion animals) yet for some reason there is an expectation that dogs should not behave like animals and retaliate if frightened or scared. Children recieve compulsory education and can be reasoned with so they understand the consequences of their actions, yet some still grow up with extremely unplesant behaviour. The majority of the millions of dogs in Britain probably get little or no training yet they manage to live their whole lives without causing injury or death and frequently they put up with incredible provocation without reacting.
Keeping a dog on a lead for the whole of its life may not be 'cruel' exactly, but I doubt it would really lead to a massive reduction in dog bite injuries either - possibly even an escalation if dog on dog aggression increases and people are bitten trying to intervene.
On the subject of dog bites, the stats are always quoted as x number of people requiring hospital treatment as a result of a bite and one is led to imagine that every incident is caused by a vicious dog attacking. My friend is included in the statistics but her's was pure accident as the dog's tooth accidentally caught her hand. It could just have easily been the edge of the table or a loose nail in a fence - purely one of those things that sometimes happens with reasonably sharp objects.
One final thought, popular opinion is that 'out of control' dogs are owned by antisocial youths looking for 'status' and while sometimes this is the case, it isn't always. Where I walk, the out of control dogs who occasionally knock over old people (and dogs) are just exuberant youngsters, often owned themselves by elderly owners! Sweeping generalisations that tar all owners with the same brush and views such as those aired on the programme are akin to using a sledgehammer to crack open a nut. Most owners are reasonably responsible and most dogs are sufficiently well behaved. The sensationalisation of a very limited number of cases does not lend itself to rational thinking and everyone suffers as a result.
Who exactly is the idiot !, what an utter plank, wonder where he gets his expert opinions from, I know who I'd like to put the E collar on !
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