Dog Attacks on Cats in the UK (in plain English)

This is about dog attacks on cats and the law – late 2013. It is written in plain English that is easy to understand so it is for kids as well as their parents.


Dog attack on cat

It is against the law to let a dog become out of control and dangerous so that it attacks and kills a cat 2. When it happens, it is very hard to prove that the dog’s owner has done wrong. It should be a crime and the dog’s owner should be punished. The trouble is that the way the law is written it makes it hard to punish these people.

The most important law about animals in the United Kingdom is called the Animal Welfare Act 2006. You can add to that the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 when it comes to out of control dogs.

Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, if the RSPCA or police are to catch a dog owner whose dog has killed a cat they have to prove to a judge that the cat’s suffering was not necessary, which is obvious and that the dog’s owner knew or should have known that what he was doing would end up causing the cat to be attacked and suffer. It is difficult to prove that.

Both the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 don’t really do the job of protecting cats from dog attacks.

There are probably more than two dog attacks on cats that end up killing a cat every week. As far as I know, not one of the owners of the dogs has been charged with a crime. Some of the attacks are deliberate when dog owners order their dogs to attack cats1. This is particularly horrible.

An example of a dog owner ordering or allowing his dog to attack a cat is when two very strong and aggressive dogs almost killed a Siamese type cat in Manchester this summer. The man saw his dogs attack the cat, Lexi, but did not stop them. The only reason why he finally did stop his dogs, by hitting them with a golf club, was when the cat’s owner heard the noise and came out of her house. Lexi was almost killed but a vet saved her life – just.  In Manchester, during July 2013, three cats were killed by dogs when the dogs’ owners ordered the dog to attack or allowed it to happen.

Although there is not a complete list of dog attacks on cats in one place, Cats Protection, Britain’s main cat rescue charity, checked out lots of newspaper stories over months and figured out that there were at least two attacks every week. There may be many more. We don’t know. Not knowing exactly what is happening is also a problem.

There are lots of examples of dogs attacking and killing cats. In one case a cat owner was devastated when her old cat, which she had cared for all her life, was killed by a Lurcher and she saw the whole thing. This happened in June 2013. A Lurcher is a large dog that can used as a hunting dog.

Often when a dog attacks a cat the same dog attacks a person, usually a child.

Parliament, the place where laws are made in the UK, is discussing the Anti-social Behaviour Crime and Policing Bill. When law is not yet the law, but being discussed, it is called a “bill”.

The reason why there are these discussions is because there are too many dog attacks on people in the UK. Dogs can kill people, normally children, as well as cats. It seems that Cats Protection have also asked that the law is changed to protect cats as well as people.

Cats Protection told Parliament that they thought that changes should be made to the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 so that if a dog owner sets a dog on any other animal including cats, the dog owner will be doing something against the law, arrested, and punished. Also, even if a dog attacks an animal without the dog’s owner being involved, it is important that the owner can still be punished under the law. The idea is to make changes to the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 by putting the changes in the Anti-social Behaviour Crime and Policing Bill and referring to the other act.

The basic idea is to make things far more clear so that the RSPCA, who make sure the animal laws are followed (enforced), can succeed in taking dog owners to court to be punished when their dog attacks and injures or kills animals that are described as “protected” under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

[Final note: Anyone can prosecute a person privately if that person has been involved in criminal behavior.]

Refs:

  1. Cats Protection
  2. https://www.gov.uk/control-dog-public
  3. http://www.publications.parliament.uk
  4. Original photo on Flickr

17 thoughts on “Dog Attacks on Cats in the UK (in plain English)”

  1. The author of the best comment will receive an Amazon gift of their choice at Christmas! Please comment as they can add to the article and pass on your valuable experience.
  2. This link does not provide data. Even if Attenborough did say that he does not know because no one knows. And people are by far the biggest killers of birds and animals. Why don’t you criticise people first and deal with them. Fix that problem then move on to cats. You’re passing the buck.

  3. You make too many wild statements that are unsubstantiated. Horribly biased. You don’t even understand the meaning of the word “murder”. You have no idea what a cat is thinking and to claim that cats kill for pleasure is idiotic. I could go on but I don’t want to waste my time.

    I am unbiased and sensible. I like cats. I like all animals. I like truth and sensible opinions. I dislike people who can’t think straight and sensibly. I dislike people who have a problem. You are one of those people. You are probably that nasty person called Woodsman trying to get a comment on a website that has banned you.

    Any more comments you make will be deleted unless the comment is sensible. I suggest you do some more serious studying on the subject of cats and make sure the sources are good. There is a lot of bias and hate out there.

    You can comment again if you list (based on good sources) the numbers of animals killed by cats in one year in the UK. Answer: you won’t find the information. You’ll find poor estimates. No one knows. So, stop being biased.

  4. And you are obviously tottaly impartial!! Cats kill masses of UK wildlife! Every single cat owner I’ve ever known has complained about their cats bringing home dead or dying prey! And cats do murder, they kill for pleasure, often tormenting their prey until they tire of it, when they kill it, and just leave it! I’ve also seen countless cats sit just out of reach of dogs, dangling their tails deliberatley winding the dogs up. My old neigbour had a little staffie dog, and a cat would sit on a small wall just out of reach, then when the dog was called in for barking, the cat would move on to wind up a Yorkie down the road, or the Rotwieler next door. I worked in an Aquarium and had hundreds of people recite how cats had killed their expensive fish, and we aided an amphibian charity in providing cat/heron proof pools where frogs and toads could breed and find food free from predation. I like pretty much all animals, but no, no I do not like cats. Having seen one torment a small shrew like creature, tossing it in the air, pouncing on it, clawing it, before killing it. (I was on the top of a building looking down on it, unable to intervene). My Grandads sister had her budgie killed by someone elses cat that got into her house, knocked the cage over, and with the plastic base of the cage broken by the fall, the cat grabbed the budgie before being chased off where it dropped the bird as it couldn’t find a way out. The budgie was her companion, and she was devestated. Fyi, had it killed one of my cats, that cat would have followed. Cat owners think their cats have the right to wander where they like, causing other people and wildlife problems, and demanding their cats go unscathed. I repeat, When you control your pets, you can critise others.

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