New Animal Control.Org

How the Animal Control System was highjacked, and how that usurpation spawned systemic failure

Throughout the world and across societal and political boundaries, when it comes to dogs, clearly all attempts to develop an effective animal control system have failed. After all, there are only three measures of how well a canine management system is working: the impact it has on humans, the impact it has on dogs, and the effect it has on the environment.

Beyond a doubt, humans are suffering mightily under the current system. Throughout the world, chronic barking has become so extreme that people in enormous numbers are seeing their property values plummet, and discovering that they can no longer work, rest, sleep, relax, or recuperate in their own homes, day or night, because the barking of someone else's untrained dog makes that impossible. What's more, the New England Journal of Medicine has identified dog bites as the number one source of traumatic injury among children, and you need only watch the evening news to know that catastrophic dog attacks have become a common feature of modern life. Then, you can add to that the growing contamination of the world's groundwater by dog feces and you'll see that, when it comes to protecting the environment and shielding the general public, the current methodologies of animal "control" are just not getting the job done.

But neither is the system working out all that well for dog lovers. In fact, because of the structure of the animal control system and it methods of operation, dog owners are steadily losing the privileges that make dog ownership worthwhile.

So it's a bust for people, but how well does the old, established animal control system work for the canine species? Every year in the United States, animal shelters put to death something in the neighborhood of three million dogs. Averaged-out, that comes to a rate of 342 dogs being killed every hour, 24 hours a day, every day of the week, every week of the year, in the U.S. alone. And it has been going on for decades. Add to that the enormous number of dogs who suffer through lives of merciless neglect, and you'll realize that the current approach to dog management isn't any great bargain for our canine cousins either.

Our current system of animal control has failed the human race, it has failed the canine species, and it has failed to protect the physical and acoustic environments. It has fallen short in every way. Indeed, one is hard-pressed to think of any measure by which our current methods of dog management have not failed.

To top it all off, we are paying a vast fortune for the results that we are not getting. Yet it continues on year after year, with no one in authority seeming to give any serious thought to replacing this atrocious loser of a system with something that might actually work.

If it is not humans and it is not dogs, then who is it, exactly, that benefits from our continuing on with a method of animal control that we know can never deliver satisfactory results?

Historically speaking, the system has well served the interests of the dog service and supply industries. They were the ones who sent legions of deep-pocketed lobbyists in to bribe lubricate influence make campaign contributions to the politicians of the "free" world. Their goal was to make dog ownership as hassle-free as possible, so they started by having their paid-for legislators set it up so that anyone could get a dog with no questions asked. Then, while they were at it, they also lobbied into place a set of laws that were designed to make it something between extremely difficult and impossible for anyone to hold irresponsible dog owners accountable for damage done as a result of their failure to properly socialize, care for, and control their dogs.

The dog lobby succeeded in that effort and, as a result, the institution of dog ownership has thrived all these years.

However, we have reached the point where irresponsible dog owners, operating with an impunity born of loose oversight, have so abused their own dogs and/or allowed them to wreak such havoc on the surrounding community that a backlash is well underway. Now every year insurance rates rise for dog owners, and we see more restrictive measures as,increasingly, the people with the say-so demand leashes, ban breeds, restrict access, and deny entry to dogs in locations where they were previously welcome. As a result, much of the fun of having a dog is lost.

Therefore, we have to ask: is it really in the interest of anyone, even the dog industry, for us to continue with a program that produces a result that threatens the foundations of dog ownership and the quality of that experience?

Isn't it time that we design and put in place an animal control system that will well serve both people and dogs? One that will end the barking and biting epidemics? One that will stop the slaughter and suffering of countless dogs while simultaneously bringing a halt to the steady erosion of the privileges extended to responsible dog owners?

This website, then, is an attempt to answer the questions, what would a truly effective animal control system look like, and how would it work.

This page is part of the Failed System section of New Animal Control.Org