Brock,
While your ideas are excellent ( and they the correct answer to the problem in my view ) you do encounter two problems with your suggestions:

First off, it's already hard to often identify the owners of offending dogs - many of the cases that you read about involve roaming packs of dogs with no ID. If you add a stiff fine as a bite punishment, there won't be a single dog in any ghetto in America that will have a tag *ever*. Then the only solution will be to enforce 100% euth for dogs that are found as strays in those areas. And that would be a form of BSL in it's own ( but I'd likely support it )

Next, "liabilty" sounds good, but when people don't have any assests, they'll just laugh at that. Mandatory jail terms would be more effective, but the same class of people that are causing the probelm here often have already be introduced to the criminal justice system, and again...they don't care.

These penalties really only matter to the dog owners that care, and they're usually not the problem.

There is a real parallel to gun ownship and the pit bull problem. The responsible ones are likely to be the worst effected by laws made to control a problem caused by irresponsible or criminal owners, but they're not the problem to begin with...

I'm sure you're right, Will. Perhaps the best and most enforceable solution is automatic extermination of the animal, which probably exists in theory in many jurisdictions but I suppose brings us back to the question of how aggresively things are enforced.

Brock,
I'm sure in some areas that they've considered door-to-door searches and the like as part of an enforcement concept.

I'd hope that any Animal Control worker with a conscience would quit on the spot rather than take part in something like that. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I still like my Idea of manditory good doggy citizenship, you can sell the idea as revinue generating. The city/county can sell certificates to trainers and sell a "walk your dog" license" to everybody else this would have to be backed up by all street level law enforcement. I've seen first hand something close to this on the beach at Nags Head North Carolina. Beach police on quads will stop you and ask for the dog's license and rabies tag and what I thought was pressing the dog a little. Any problems and you got yourself a ticket and a trip to the pound

I don't know, Dennis. It sounds good in theory, but if you think about it, it's going to have the same pitfalls as any of the other suggestions: 1)responsible owners aren't the problem, and they're the only ones who are going to go along with something like this.

2) LOTS of dogs who are not a danger to the general public would NOT pass a CGC. Take mine, for example. He wouldn't pass the AKC test, but he'd also not be likely to cause harm to anyone inappropriately. He is often loose on my property, around strangers, and he just ignores them. I don't think he's alone; I think many, many, good working dogs also wouldn't pass a CGC. Does that mean that their (primarily) responsible owners shouldn't be allowed to walk them off their property?

Working dog waivers and K9 would be exclude, and it doesn't have to be a full blown CGC or Bh, just enough to prove your not walking around with "Psycho Killer" and "Rude Dawg"

Dennis, it would never work, period. The petsmart people would end up doing the evals, or people that do the fake hand thing by the food bowl, etc. 2 of mine wouldn't be considerd good citizens, but they're good dogs , so.....
AL

I get what you're saying, and I agree, but there are still a lot of us whose dogs would be out of luck. "Working Dogs" is pretty vague. Does this means dogs who are actually employed, of working bloodlines, training for some specific purpose..etc.? Do you mean sport titles? I'm not being difficult here-I agree with some type of requirement; I'm just not sure it's enforceable. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

I don't think my dog would be too happy if we were strolling down the beach (from your previous post) minding our own business, and some guys stop us and hassle us, and "put pressure" on him. I have a feeling I'd be on my way to the pound shortly thereafter <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />. This would kind of fit a protection scenario, wouldn't it? The incidents this whole idea is trying to prevent are INAPPROPRIATE bites, and I think a TEST using that scenario would fall closer to appropriate, if your dog has some protection training. Of course the appropriateness would all depend on how exactly they approached the dog and the handler.

Unfortunately, I think it's a losing situation. One of those deals where only the responsible people will be inconvenienced, and their dogs are not likely to be the problem. It's hard to enforce punishment on people who probably won't bother to pick up their dog when it gets hauled off to the pound anyway... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Well I'm glad Nags Head NC decided to enforce dog laws on thier beach, they could of very easily of said "No Dogs Allowed" and vacationers would have been forced to leave thier dogs at home. The people I seen stopped were the ones with unruly or uncontroled off leash dogs. Well BSL isn't going to work, Tags are going to be ignored by the scofflaws and enforcing existing dog laws is a bottom priority for many areas. anybody else have any ideas?

Well, if they're just stopping dogs who are obviously out of control or being obnoxious or unruly, then that's a different story. I was under the impression that they were just patrolling and approaching *all* dogs. If the dogs are unruly enough, I understand stopping them to kind of see which way they're leaning-is this a potentially dangerous dogs who the owner has no control of, or it this just your over-zealous retriever who will probably do nothing but irritate other beach-goers with licks? I can see investigating an out-of-control dog to get a better idea of temperament.