Dog Trainers Address Responsibility for Dog Attacks Amid Public Outcry: The Importance of Owner Training Emphasized

It’s not dogs but their owners who should be held responsible for mauling incidents, dog trainers said Tuesday, responding to public outcry after several reported dog attacks in recent weeks.

Dog trainer Fabian Blackman, owner of Shireoaks Kennels which breeds and trains German Shepherds, also blamed a dog culture of lax dog handling, resistance to dog training and the absence of enforcement of laws requiring the leashing of dogs in public.

Blackman, who has over ten years experience in training a variety of dog breeds, said the public instinct would be to ban certain breeds of dogs, including German Shepherds, Akitas and Rottweilers. But he insisted the fault for the attacks remains at the feet of owners who often refuse to seek out the necessary training for the animals.

“We don’t really have a culture where people like to train their dogs,” Blackman told Barbados TODAY. “They don’t want to undertake formal training with the dog even if the dog becomes problematic.

“The thing is, it’s not for the lack of trainers; there are at least ten professional dog trainers in Barbados who actually go to persons’ homes, and in every vet office there is a list of these dog trainers, so you can call any vet and say: ‘Hey I need a dog trainer, can you help me?’ And they will provide you with several numbers for dog trainers out there.”

Blackman referred to one incident at the Botanical Gardens in which “irresponsible owners” continued to demonstrate a lack of awareness of the best procedures for allowing their dogs to roam freely in public areas.

He said: “People generally take their dogs to the Botanical Gardens to walk. The issue, obviously, is that it’s a wide, open area, and dogs should never be off-leash. We need more stringent leash laws in Barbados, especially for a place like the Botanical Gardens, where because it’s so vast, people have picnics [and] other events. There are going to be loads of kids, loads of stimuli for the dog, so to have a dog off-leash, I think, is really irresponsible. That … goes back to irresponsible dog ownership and irresponsible dog handling.

“The other issue that you are having is that persons don’t socialise their dogs, so they don’t take their dogs into public spaces and they don’t sensitise their dogs to various stimuli around. They don’t adequately secure their dogs in their home. If you have a dog, let’s say a Rottweiler, and you have a [small] fence, that dog can scale that fence or jump that fence if they want to jump. So Barbadians need to properly secure their animals. I’m not saying you need to chain them up, but they need to properly secure their animals at their homes.”