Owners of Bull breeds of dog in Germany were literally fearing for their safety and their dogs' lives last weekend as the Regional and Federal Governments enacted emergency 'dangerous dogs' laws after two dogs alleged to be an American Pit Bull Terrier and an American Staffordshire Terrier attacked and killed a six year-old schoolboy.
As reported previously in OUR DOGS, the regional States assemblies in Germany had been enacting draconian dog control legislation after a series of well-publicized - and massively hyped - dog attacks over the previous few months. In a sinister echo of the circumstances leading up to the introduction of the UK's Dangerous Dogs Act, the German media launched into a frenzy against so-called 'fighting breeds' when an 86 year-old woman was killed by a Rottweiler in April of this year.
The German Home Secretary himself launched a campaign to ban all 'fighting breeds', a cry taken up by the media.Gregor Von Dungen, President of the Gesellschaft der Bullterrier-Freunde (Society of Bull Terrier Friends)told OUR DOGS at the time;
"Every day there are terrible stories about 'fighting dogs' in our newspapers. On television the other night, a politician was on raging about the dogs and a dog breeder tried to explain about dog behaviour only for the politician to turn to him and say 'I am not interested in scientific explanations; I want these dogs banned.' How can you have a rational argument over attitudes like
