Attacks by dogs on humans and other animals

Dear Editor,

I refer to disturbing media reports of attacks by dogs on humans and other animals over the past five years. County councils nationwide have been inundated with complaints of scary incidents involving a range of breeds, some causing severe facial injuries.

Responding to these reports, the civic authorities have rightly emphasised the importance of keeping dogs on leads in public places and generally under control.

While this is sound advice, I would also draw attention to a factor that contributes to this unfortunate incidence of aberrant canine behaviour: the blooding of dogs for illegal sports such as dog fighting and badger baiting, and the legal pursuits of hare coursing and greyhound racing.

To whet their appetite for blood and thus supposedly enhance their performance in the baiting pits, on the racing track or in coursing, dogs are deliberately fed captive live animals including hares, rabbits, birds and even cats.

Last year there was a disturbing incident on a County Cork housing estate that showed just how low some humans will sink in their addiction to animal cruelty: Children witnessed men releasing cats from a cage to be ripped apart by greyhounds. One cat was heavily pregnant and onlookers managed to save some of the kittens that were prematurely born due to this sickening act. But blooding is rarely conducted in public places, the organisers being highly secretive in their activities.

Dogs exposed to such ‘training’ are hardly likely to be well disposed towards humans or animals, or at the very least are at considerable risk of being brutalised by the experience.

And we must not blame the unfortunate dogs for the result of man’s inhumanity. People who set one animal against another for fun or sport need to be restrained as much as the dogs that they whip into a frenzy of bloodlust.

Anyone with knowledge of blooding should report it to the Gardai immediately. The heartless perpetrators are a menace to both man and beast.

Thanking you, John Fitzgerald, Lower Coyne Street, Callan, Co. Kilkenny.