Dangerous dogs!

I'm getting to this issue a little late, but I personally feel it's very important. The Scottish Parliament has recently passed legislation on dangerous dogs. The Private Members Bill was begun by Alex Neil MSP before he became a Minister, and steered expertly through Parliament by Christine Grahame MSP. Info on the background to the Bill can be found here.

The main thrust of the legislation, which amends the 1991 Dangerous Dogs act, is to recognise that any dog can be dangerous and that attacks can and do happen in any location. It also recognises the issue of dogs which seriously harm or kill other animals as well as humans. Incidents range from a bite to the most horrendous cases; it's clear that there needs to be more responsibility taken by owners for their pets, and hopefully this will be a step in the right direction.

The act introduces the so called 'dog asbo', the dog control notice. A person now has the option of reporting an out of control dog should it's behaviour cause reasonable apprehensiveness or alarm. The burden of investigating and enforcing the notice falls to local authorities.

I hope that this legislation is successful in bringing in that change, and I for one will certainly be encouraging all my constituents to report any concerns they have about dogs in their area.

Glasgow East By Election

Apologies for the lack of updates - I've been incredibly busy juggling work and the by election, as well as trying to throw together a wedding!

As Indygal so nicely reported, I also spent two nights in hospital after a dog bite went nasty. It was a disruption I could have been doing without! After a lot of IV antibiotics, the infection stopped tracking back along my hand and my finger returned to it's normal size. The staff at the Royal Infirmary were great, and made sure I was fighting fit before they let me go.

I'm not the only one who's been bitten during the campaign - four of us were swapping stories yesterday afternoon - so you could surmise it's a risky business delivering leaflets! I've had a lot of narrow misses during the campaign so far, so I'm certainly wary when I'm out working.

I wish more dog owners would think of the risks posties and activists take just a wee bit more and install an external letter box. We don't get our fingers chewed, people get their mail in one piece. I could put a picture of my finger up to make my point, but I don't want to put you off your dinner...