Today's visit from Alex Neil MSP .......what did you think?

[Martin and Claire]

what a fantastic turnout!!! i would have loved to have made it. well done john in organising the meeting. It really shines through how much you and marcella and the whole club care about responsible dog ownership

[Emma*]

I have to agree a very good meeting. It will be interesting to see what is written in the Autumn.
Perhaps the Grey areas will be clarified. I am still concerned as many about the definitions of aggression and out of control but i guess we will just have to wait and see. Some very good points raised all in all.

Thanks John and Marcella for organising the meeting
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Happiness is being loved by 2 Great Danes

[Barry]

Hey all! Have to agree with most of what has been already stated within this thread! Alex came across fairly well and I think it was great John was able to arrange the visit and my hat goes off to Alex for attending. I think we would all agree it was very informative, helped most of us understand the main points of the new law proposals a bit better and all in all was enjoyable, where did the 90 mins go? I will keep my eye out for the more defined draft put on show later this year, and hope the Grey areas are fewer and less generalized. Quite a few folk raised concerns about the people who would be dealing with the complaint being inexperienced in general dog behavior. A thought may be that the calls to police are answered by the 'dog branch' within that area? I know there are lots of pressures being currently put on police to be here there and everywhere, just thought for a specialized area of complaint, that particular unit may deal with these situations more appropriately?
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Barry, Kylie & Jay with precious Rotti Tikka

[Lynn Scott]

Hi John

I thought Alex Neil gave a good presentation of his proposals and answered the questions put to him in a clear, concise way - he certainly didn't waffle like a lot of politicians! I'm not sure what I was expecting!

I think this will be a good thing for those of us who are responsible owners, and hopefully will weed out the less desirable and less responsible dog owners:-)

There are obviously some areas that need clarifying, but overall I was OK with what he said. I much prefer to have the 'deed' than the 'breed' - even though I've got a powerful, dominant breed. I would hate it if they got put on the banned list because of a handful of idiotic, irresponsible owners/breeders. I will always keep my dog under control - wherever he goes (as you know) because I don't want to be responsible for the breed ever getting a bad reputation.

I was concerned (as per my question) about what would happen under the proposed law if someone goes over a fence into the back garden for criminal purposes etc, so was pleased to hear his response. The difficulty arises when it's a child that goes over the fence - I don't think dogs actually see 'a child', they just see a smaller person! I never leave Oscar out on his own - one of us is usually outside, or I leave the back door open for him to come in and out as he chooses, and he would bark long before anyone would manage to climb the fence so I don't think it would be an issue really for us.

We had a situation a couple of years ago: I was away for the weekend, and we had carers doing 24hr cover for John. On Sunday morning the carer saw that the shed door was lying on the grass and went out to discover it'd been broken off. To cut a long story short - the police caught the 2 teenage boys, and although they'd taken some items (which we got back) they had left other things behind on the grass. When asked by the police why they'd done that they replied 'cos we heard a huge dog barking and ran away'! My comment to the police (when I returned home) was 'well they can be very thankful I wasn't at home because I would have gone out with the dog to see what was going on, and they would have got a BIG fright then'! Come to think of it, that would probably have done them good

Lynn