DOG BITE LAW

Make pet stores give customers specific information about breeds

Through proper selection, socialization, training, care, and treatment of a dog, dog owners can reduce the likelihood of owning a dog that will eventually bite (see Avoid trouble with your dog). The law must see to it that owner education is accomplished at the point where it will do the most good: the selection of the dog. When a family is picking a dog at the pet store, the store should be required to provide information about the breed. This rule should also apply to breeders, adoption organizations, rescues and shelters.
We need to help dog owners to be more responsible. This means they need to learn the characteristics, health issues, and other requirements of their new dog. They need to know a range of basics:

• Pick a dog that is right for your household.
• Train the dog, hopefully with a professional trainer or at least some classes given by the city.
• Learn the behavioral characteristics of the dog you are thinking of getting. Some dogs are too big and too powerful for small apartments or small children. Other dogs will bond only with one member of the family and will be a threat to the other members.

There is nothing new to this concept. Instructions and warnings are part of everyday, modern life. Electrical cords warn of shock, plastic bags of suffocation; trucks beep when they back up. Just about everything comes with advice, instructions and warnings. Many activities have their own safety attire (like batting helmets) or special rules (like adult supervision of playgrounds).

Here are the top causes of childhood emergency-room injuries:

(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association. See also When, where and why kids get bit.)

You'd think the second highest thing that injures children would come with warnings too! But you can go to a pet store, buy a dog like an Akita or Chow-chow, and not have to demonstrate any knowledge about it. You don't have to consider whether it is correct for your household (should Presa Canarios be confined in a small apartment, or will doing so make them crazy?). You don't leave the pet store knowing any more than when you walked in.

Why not require that at least pet stores distribute information and warnings about dogs?

• A checklist to determine what the important characteristics of the buyer's household are.
• A description of the particular breed's temperament, and whether dogs of that breed bond with more than one family member.
• A warning that certain breeds will make it difficult or impossible to obtain insurance, that infants should not be in the same households with large and powerful dogs, that children should never be left alone with dogs or other animals, etc.

The wrong dog is something that you would not want in your home, yet is easy to buy by mistake. There should be advice about any dog, and warnings about the ones that might be too powerful or are associated with too many bites. 

There is solid legal precedent for this. The courts have mandated warnings about:

• Violent kids (Ellis v. D'Angelo (1953) 116 Cal.App.2d 310, upheld a cause of action against parents who failed to warn a baby-sitter of the violent proclivities of their child.
• Violent foster children (Johnson v. State of California (1968) 69 Cal.2d 782 upheld a suit against the state for  failure to warn foster parents of the dangerous tendencies of their ward.)
• The release of dangerous prisoners (Morgan v. County of Yuba (1964) 230 Cal.App.2d 938 sustained a cause of action against a sheriff who had promised to warn decedent before releasing a dangerous prisoner, but failed to do so.