first mate

You don't need to have a space right outside your house. I'm more than happy to park up the road when necessary. I think it's a small price to pay to avoid the introduction of parking permits etc..We must keep pressure on to avoid the money-making permit game.

Jeremy, As I said before, the force of a dog bite in reality is not so much dictated by head or jaw size but by intent. Anyone who has owned a puppy before it learns to inhibit its bite will know what I mean- those bites can really hurt. Obviously a large dog can bite harder than a small dog and a large dog intent on hurting you will do more damage than a small dog- but dogs have become domesticated animals because, for the most part, they do not go around with the intention to bite humans really hard.

Dogs and humans have a shared history- at what point did human society, in its myriad forms, become civilised?

KK, I'm interested to know what you have in mind? Ban the breed type and people will move on to the next best thing,it used to be GSD and Rottweilers. A cranky collie can be scary. Or are you suggesting that we remove dogs altogether? I know some will applaud this idea. Ban dogs, ban cars, ban guns, ban knives......er what else can hurt people...oh yes, other people.

Not automatically no. The dog might be unbalanced/mad, there is an equal probability that it has been poorly trained or abused. Finally, it might be ill or in severe pain and the owner did not know. All of these are reasonable explanations based on some knowledge of why dogs attack their owners.

kidkruger, I think you'd be surprised at just how dangerous a small dog like a rogue Jack Russell/ Cocker Spaniel or Beagle can be and how hard they can bite and how much damage they can do if they have the desire to hurt you. Any of these are more than capable of killing a child if they want to and doing very serious damage to you. Bottom line, just about any dog has the potential to be dangerous, it comes pre-equipped with some very impressive weapons.

Louisa, What is your source for that assertion? A pitbull is a very different proposition from a Staff, the first has a guard instinct the second does not. A bull type breed could mean any amount of crosses- it is a mongrel. The key is the soundness of dogs bred from and then the way they are brought up/ trained. I do agree, however, that powerful breeds whether badly bred or badly trained/abused are a loaded gun. As ever, the real problem/culprit tends to be the human that owns them.

Jeremy, I understand what you are saying and why, however, a 'sound' dog that is properly socialised and healthy is highly unlikely to turn and severely bite its owner because it has got a fright etc.. An extremely frightened dog may snap if it is cornered but they will exercise what is called 'bite inhibition'. It sounds as though this dog was biting hard, it either meant to hurt its owner because it was poorly trained and socialised or of unsound mind/bad breeding. Even dogs with the most powerful jaws learn early on how to inhibit their bite, a puppy has to learn this in order to interact with other dogs, as well as with humans. It is not clear how badly the woman was injured. If she suffered puncture wounds then that is an uninhibited bite, if she was grazed or bruised that would be an inhibited bite. Just to add any displays of aggression to humans are generally different to those displayed by staffs etc.. to other dogs, cats etc.. That is prey drive and involves different parts of the brain from other types of aggression. Granted, some rogue dogs may treat children as prey but it would be unusual and children should never be left alone with any dog.

Blame the backyard breeder. Staffs are generally totally solid with people and children (provided, of course, children are not allowed to do really stupid things to the dog) but may be unreliable with other dogs. This dog may have looked like a staff or a some other bull breed but is probably a cross. You get rogue dogs but aggression to humans is not a trait associated with Staffs as a breed. I see lots of people who have a penchant for kicking/punching bull breed type dogs and that may be another root of this dog's outburst.

*Bob*, Why, what does it mean? Given the burst water main in Brixton, perhaps there is something going down. However, 1.30 in the morning seems an extraordinary time for people to be working.

Like all the best ideas, simple but stunning. Hope you get plenty of work out of it.

JimmyJay, I agree too. That is why the council keep pushing for it- it's a lovely revenue source and who knows how far they'll hike the prices once they get the controlled parking in. I would fight this every inch of the way and, interestingly, I know of no resident that supports it.

Loved it.

Perhaps commuters are a problem but I would plead with you not to go the way of controlled parking. We've always managed without it, and once tied up into paying those fees there is no way back. Aside from the car wash and builder vehicles another bugbear of mine is two car families.

James, You may have a point about my memory, however, it does not take a genius to work out that those residents and others unable to park in Chesterfield because parking is already gobbled up by the numerous car wash clients and abundant skips and builders vehicles, will go to the next street- Melbourne Grove.

gwod, sorry, not meaning to be obstructive, but voluntary work does not preclude training and the possibility of some level of insurance/legal cover. I'd gladly sign a petition demanding a reduction in council chief exec pay though- ?250, that's virtually the cost of ownership of a home/flat a year.

Ratty, I think you'll find that in certain sections of hospital care/nursing homes this is already an unspoken requirement because the staffing levels are not high enough. In other cultures there is an expectation that you feed and bathe familyy whilst in hospital. It may be a bitter pill, but there are a number of Mums that don't work and volunteering to do lollipop duty may be viewed as a useful contribution to ease the general tax burden. Just a thought.

It seems like we have this sort of consultation every year and every year the residents say no. This leads me to conclude that it is the council that desperately want controlled parking....why, I wonder? A major source of parking congestion round Melbourne way is the car wash at the end of Chesterfield, where parking attendants seem to turn a blind eye to the cars backed up waiting to get washed, parked on yellow lines and clogging the street. A further source of parking congestion is the builders vans and skips, courtesy of myriad loft conversions in the area. Sort these issues and parking would improve immeasurably. I mean the above only partly tongue in cheek.

Why not have volunteer lollipop people- perhaps parents who are not working could do a rota. If enough parents volunteer it might mean you only have to do a stint once a month. Parent power to protect your kids?

Pommie, I agree, that you can never trust any dog 100% around children, but that is generally more a reflection of the way some children are allowed to pull animals around. If dogs were generally such a liability around people and children, they would not have evolved over thousands of years to live so closely with us. I am frequently shocked by the things some toddlers do to dogs they don't know. I feel that as a society we have lost a degree of animal know-how and there are completely unrealistic expecations of how much a dog or cat is supposed to put up with to be deemed 'safe'.

Moos, And they will carry on doing it. It's in them and now they have a taste for it- in the same way that a cat that gets one bird rarely stops at one. The man must be brought to book.

Hi agree with everyone that the man needs to be held to account, he should not have had his dogs offlead and if this was clearly made law for all public paths (excepting parks)it would make life a lot simpler and easy to prosecute those who do not adhere to the law. Can I just clarify again that because a dog goes for a cat it does not mean it is vicious. Even if a dog is socialised with cats that it lives with, it may well still go for cats it does not. Prey drive is very distinct from other forms of aggression and some dogs are born with a high prey drive. A dog that attacks cats is not more likely or just as likely, to attack people or children. The latter is a completely different form of aggression involving different brain areas. That said, no dog in full prey drive mode or indeed in a fight with another dog, is safe in terms of human intervention. The dog is in a very high arousal state and will bite at anything that tries to separate it from its prey. Anyone who knows about dogs will advise that any human intervening in these situations is likely to get bitten. Again, you have to know the type of dog you have an control/train appropriately. Having, in this instance, high prey drive terriers careering offlead around London streets is highly irresponsible.

HI BB, The law is a mess on that score and I hope they get it sorted soon. It would be one of the simplest remedies. My understanding, though I am happy to be corrected, is that you can walk a dog offlead on a pavement provided it is under control (presumably a dog that goes after a cat is not under control- but this is not a given). However, I beleive that under the local bylaws you cannot cross a public road unless your dog is on a lead. So if the man concerned was observed crossing a road dogs off lead that my be grounds for prosecution. With regard to the cat, because it is a stray I just don't know. Cats like dogs are viewed as property and the damage is to your property- I think. In terms of DDA it is a tough one as has already been argued, aggression to a cat is not the same thing at all as aggression to a human and a perfectly lovely dog in every other way may go for a cat it does not live with. To argue that this proves it could also go for a child is erroneous and would not stand up in court. If there are any lawyers out there who know the law it would be good to know if it would be possible to prosecute the man in question and on what grounds.

Owners have to take account of the type of dog they have. If I have a terrier I know that it may have a strong prey drive, so I take that into account when training, harnessing those drives and instincts in more community friendly ways, like teaching the pup/dog to chase balls, do scent work and so on. If I have a Staff or other bull breed type, I know that I have to do a lot of work in terms of socializing him/her with other dogs, understanding how to interact and how to play without causing a bust up. Staffs are often bad at communicating with other dogs and both give off and get mixed messages. Ditto prey drive with other dogs. If I have a wary/guardy breed like a GSD, an Akita or Dobermann, I know I have to work hard to socialize them around people and life in general so they learn to understand what they need to react to and what they don't. If I have a Husky I know I'm going to probably have to keep it on the lead most of the time as they are not great at recall. They can also easily scale a 7 foot fence. The list goes on. The onus is always on the owner. In most cases, various breeds or types of dogs, have evolved to perform a function and that gives massive clues as to how easily they will integrate into your lifestyle and what training/socialization they'll need. There are always exceptions and there are always extremes in terms of breed/type traits.

JohnL, Sorry, I don't agree- it depends on the dog. Some are just born highly reactive and with a strong prey drive. Think what most terriers were originally developed for, to go after small furries. Of course, you can try to breed for a more laid back temperament all round, but you still get throwbacks. I'd also say that a big tomcat would be able to best quite a few small dogs. I've seen dogs chased down the street by a tomcat. However, some terriers are so wired that they'll just go after anything no matter what the consequences- they're predisposed to.