A couple of years ago I was looking for information on dog law and found it quite difficult so pieced together a document on dog law. Here are a couple of bits from it.
Quote:
Under Section 2 of the Control of Dogs Order 2002, every dog on a highway or in a public place must wear a collar with the name and address of the owner inscribed on it or on a plate or badge attached to it.
Failure to do so is an offence against the Animal Health Act 1981 for which an owner can be prosecuted and fined.
Any dog without a collar on a highway or in a public place may be treated as a stray dog and seized by the Local Authority.
If your dog strays, you should contact your local dog warden (through the Environmental Health Department of your Local Authority) immediately and stay in regular contact. If your dog is found by the Local Authority, you must pay the Local Authority's reasonable expenses before it will be returned to you.
If after seven days, the owner of a stray dog does not come forward the Local Authority may transfer the dog to someone else, transfer it to an establishment for stray dogs or have it destroyed.
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Quote:
Firstly let us dispel the myth that the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 applies only to so called "dangerous" or "fighting" dogs; it does not. It applies to any dog irrespective of its breed or size.
Under Section 3(1) of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 a criminal charge can be brought against the owner (or any person in charge of a dog) if the dog is "dangerously out of control in a public place".
Whilst "public place" is relatively self-explanatory, being any place "to which the public have or are permitted to have access", "dangerously out of control" makes it sound as though the dog was wildly rampaging around terrorising all and sundry. The reality is of course far less sensational.
In fact, a dog is "dangerously out of control" on "any occasion on which there are grounds for reasonable apprehension that it will injure any person, whether or not it actually does so". It follows therefore that a dog does not actually have to injure someone to be dangerously out of control; it is enough that someone is in fear that it might.
Owners and/or persons in charge of dogs found guilty under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 could see the destruction of the dog, be banned from keeping dogs or even face a prison sentence. Mercifully, such penalties are rarely imposed with consequences being largely financial by way of fines, compensation and costs.
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At the time Hyndburn Borough Council had no useful information on there website and the dog warden at the time, we have a new one now, wasn't aware of some of the above.