Living With Dogs (18 page)

Since 1990 I have seen the number of dogs entering the RSPCA Victorian shelters plateau to around 20,000 per year. Despite a range of initiatives, including changes to the law, this figure remains stubbornly predictable. I acknowledge that there is a great deal more work to be done in educating the community to recognise and do something about their general lack of skills in dog ownership. I believe dog ownership is a privilege, not a right, and further that all dog owners should be licensed as a fit and proper person to own a dog rather than continue with the old system of dog licensing.

Dumping animals is a criminal offence under the State and Territory Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Acts, which provides a fine of $12,000 or one year’s imprisonment for a first offence.

There is still a clear tendency for people to vent their frustrations by ‘kicking the dog’. Research has shown that violence against animals rises in proportion to the general level of violence within the community. When you have a violent society, more violence is directed against dogs or other animals.

I remember a harrowing example of that cruelty, reported in April 1995 in a front page article in
The Age
under the headline ‘Dog’s three-day ordeal ends in death’. The case involved a Jack Russell Terrier, kept in a flat in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran, which had been stabbed through the throat with a screwdriver. This followed three days of beating and kicking which left the dog with broken ribs. The investigating RSPCA inspector said the killing was ‘beyond comprehension’, and described it as the worst case of cruelty he had witnessed in 13 years as an inspector.

Neighbours told police they heard the sound of a dog yelping coming from the flat for three days, and the autopsy revealed that the dog had been kicked over successive days, cracking ribs, and causing a punctured lung. It had then had food rammed down its throat with a foot-long Philips-head screwdriver, causing its liver to be ruptured and resulting in its death.

The inspector said the killing was more disturbing as it was not a frenzied one-off attack, but the result of accumulated episodes of cruelty over three days. He said that while this was an extreme case, there appeared to be a perception that pets could be used as punching bags for owners to vent their frustrations.

The dog’s owner, a 27-year-old man, was charged under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act with aggravated cruelty. At that time the charge carried penalties of up to 12 months in jail or a $5000 fine (now $24,000 or two years imprisonment).

It was a case of barbaric cruelty and one of about 15,000 complaints received each year by the RSPCA. The organisation has always fought against such overt cruelty, but since becoming Victorian president in 1972 I have also campaigned to stop the covert cruelty of owner ignorance and irresponsibility. Often owners inflict pain and suffering simply by not understanding their dog, or by putting themselves first. A good officer always looks after his troops, and that’s the way it is with dogs: the good dog owner always considers the animal first. If you take on another part of creation, you’re obliged to look after it.

I have tried to change the attitudes of people who buy a dog as a fashionable play thing, to be turned on and off as required; or those people who kill the dog with kindness, by feeding it till it can’t move; or those owners who hold on to the dog well beyond its use-by date.

In 2000 a survey of companion animal veterinary practices was conducted by the RSPCA and the University of Sydney Faculty of Veterinary Science to determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity in dogs. The results were:

• 41 per cent of dogs surveyed were found to be overweight or obese, 55 per cent ideal and only 4 per cent underweight;
  

• Dogs are more likely to encounter weight problems than any other companion animal;
  

• Animals at greater risk are female, desexed, older, poorly exercised, with obese owners;
  

• The survey figures duplicated similar results of surveys in the UK and the USA.
  

Owners will often argue that it is cruelty to deny the dog titbits, particularly if the dog is present while the owner is eating. The action is often rationalised with the belief that giving the dog a little bit of biscuit won’t really hurt, but this goes against all the accumulated evidence of human experience. You’re overweight because you eat too much and don’t exercise enough. Excuses that the dog is fat because it’s desexed, or because of a glandular problem, are a plain denial of the truth, and a sure sign that the owner has no intention of taking responsibility for the health problems resulting from the fact that the animal is chronically overweight.

So many conditions are caused or exacerbated by being overweight. Obesity has been proven to be a factor in diabetes, heart disorders and Cushing’s disease (a condition of the adrenal gland), and it also causes discomfort to dogs with degenerative spinal diseases, because they are carrying too much weight. Elderly dogs often won’t exercise because their weight problem makes it difficult for them to get around. There is no doubt such a dog suffers misery, but the proper word to describe it is cruelty.

Putting a dog down is a very emotional act for anyone, however resigned they might have become to its inevitability. The general rule is that if a dog cannot, through medical or surgical treatment, be returned to a situation where it can once again enjoy life, then, ethically, it should be put down. It’s cruelty to delay doing so, and it is usually based on an act of personal indulgence, coupled with a refusal to submit oneself to the inevitable pain and anguish associated with the loss of a dog.

The decision to end a dog’s life is usually clear-cut when the animal has suffered some acute medical problem or a serious traumatic injury, but it’s much less obvious in the many degenerative diseases suffered by dogs. In an acute situation, the owner is guided by the vet, but in the chronic degenerative cases, while the vet’s advice is essential, it is up to the owner to decide how far he or she is prepared to allow the condition to progress.

These guidelines will help an owner make the best decision:

• The dog can no longer walk — there is nothing more distressing to a dog than to lack mobility.
  

• The dog is unable to consume sufficient food on a daily basis to prevent loss of bodyweight.
  

• The dog’s lack of hearing or eyesight frequently places it in life-threatening situations.
  

• The dog is clearly in constant pain.
  

• The dog has become incontinent (bowel or bladder).
  

• The dog no longer reacts positively to its environment, or to the day-to-day happenings involving interaction with humans. It has become vegetative, simply existing between feeds.