I want to start a petition to make dog attacks a crime in the UK. 

On New Year’s Eve my sister was walking our family dog on his usual walk that we take him on every day when my sister seen another dog coming round the corner without a lead attached. My sister quickly lifted our dog into her arms as our dog has an extendable lead. The other dog then attacked our dog dragging him from my sister’s arms and onto the ground. If it wasn’t for my sister our dog would have been mauled. Not only did our dog get hurt by this dog but my sister also got hurt!! 

Now we know exactly who the owner of the dog is and he has had dogs that have attacked before. He didn’t even try to stop the attack he actually ran away from it!!! So we phoned the police, took them 3 days to speak to us. When they eventually did speak to us do you know what they said? they can’t do anything about it because the dog didn’t attack the human first?? they also classed the attack as “fighting” NO!! our dog was minding his own business when this dog attacked him. Our dog was terrified and he’s not the type of dog to fight other dogs!! The police are an absolute joke for the way they have handled this case.

They tried saying our dog could have been hyper and encouraged the dog to attack which is definitely not true. They also said that it doesn’t matter if a dog attacks another dog because dogs “fight” all the time (which isn’t true) for the police to be able to charge the owner the dog had to of attacked my sister first before our dog?? now that’s them basically saying that dogs don’t matter but everyone who is a dog owner knows exactly how it feels when something so terrible happens to their little bundle of joy. The feeling you get is just as strong as what it would be if something had happened to a family member for example, because dogs are apart of your family!! 

This attack cost my mum £400 which she didn’t have to spend on a vet bill but who else was going to pay it? certainly not the owner of the dog that had attacked... its hard to sit back and suffer the consequences due to an irresponsible dog owner!!! The police also made a comment about how the owner could have been a responsible dog owner because he trusted it to be off the lead. No, if the owner was so responsible do you not think he would have stayed and tried to help my sister get his dog off of our dog, instead he just ran away and left the dog to keep attacking?? what part of that makes him a responsible dog owner?? 

I urge everyone to please read this petition and get it out there because dog attacks should be a crime and legal action should be taken, it shouldn’t just be pushed to the side and act as if it hasn’t happened because the thought of our dog and family going through what we went through that night, it never leaves you but i bet you the irresponsible dog owner  sleeps at night and is not afraid of walking his dog the next day!! 

If anyone feels as strongly as i do about this situation then please help me do something about it!!