Category: Cruelty to dogs

Issues specifically causing harm to dogs.

Dog Daddy. Yet another controversial showman dog trainer making money.

The Dog Daddy aka Augusto DeOliveira, is yet another in a long list of showman dog trainers who pop up from time to time and court controversy in order to gain celebrity and at the same time make huge sums of money out of gullible dog owners and followers. Dog training is big business and very lucrative and totally unregulated in most countries. Wherever their is money to be made there will always be someone to take advantage of it.

Dog training is big business and lucrative.

He is young, good looking, has chosen a catchy moniker, knows how to capitalise social media, surround himself with hype and garner millions of followers worldwide, particularly the young. He swaggers about in designer clothes and sunglasses having photographs with the usual celebrity clients and poses outside designer shops. He will be a multi-millionaire in no time, if not already. It is just about presentation and hype. Basically the dogs are just props for his huge marketing campaign.

Like other controversial trainers before Dog Daddy there are moves to ban him from the U.K. and there is a Change.org petition with this intent at the moment. He was due to hold training sessions at secret locations recently but these were cancelled probably partly because of protests from the RSPCA, the British Veterinary Association, The Kennel Club and many others.

Dog clicker training v Dog Daddy methods

But what of Dog Daddy methods.

His methods are nothing new particularly in America: using prong collars, stringing up dogs, yanking and dragging them harshly and poking them. Despite his suspect methods owners willingly to offer up their sacrificial dogs for punishment.

Celebrity trainers come and go. Back in the 1970’s and 1980’s we had the highly celebrated Barbara Woodhouse in the U.K. and across the world, probably the mother of this brand of dog trainers. She made a good living and fame from her TV programmes, books and documentaries about her methods. This was mainly because of her perceived eccentricity which always makes good TV. She was regarded by many dog owners as a saviour and by others as heavy handed and cruel with her domineering methods.

Another more recent example was American showman dog trainer Jeff Gellman who was accused of hitting dogs with a rolled up towel and uses prong collars and remote control shock collars to keep dogs in line. The use of such instruments of torture are much used in North America and are readily available on the internet in the U.K. His YouTube videos and live appearances garnered him wealth and fame and followers who queued up willing to pay large sums of money for a session with him.

The argument over negative and positive reinforcement.

We now live in a world of dog behaviourists, clinical animal behaviourists, psychiatrists, counsellors and a variety of trainers to make dogs compliant and contented with our modern lifestyles. All because as owners we have made them nervous wrecks in one way or another.

The methods used by Dog Daddy and his ilk highlight the great division that still exists after decades of research and debate regarding the best and most humane way of training a dog to fit in with our modern lifestyles. Every self proclaimed dog behaviourist and trainer has their own ideas. But then everybody likes to think they are a dog expert.

“Experts” have long disagreed over the two main variants of training: “Aversive” or “negative reinforcement” training favoured by most showman trainers utilises brute force but is viewed as counter productive and stresses dogs, compared with “positive reinforcement” where dogs are bribed with treats and praised to toe the line. Whether any of this is scientifically sound or not, common sense dictates that hitting, yanking and electrocuting dogs is probably not the most humane course of action.

You can beat humans and enslave or make them submissive with the right methods but it doesn’t mean the method is right or acceptable.

Genuine and sincere dog trainer or another showman – you to decide.
Just When You Thought the Barbara Woodhouse Days Were Over

Animal Abuse versus Child Abuse

When it comes to protection and welfare legislation it could be argued that we have a bias towards amending and introducing legislation against animal abuse over child abuse.

Are we prioritising the protection of animals over that of children?

It could be argued that our present society has a bias towards amending and introducing legislation protecting animals at the expense of children. Some might feel that we expend too much time, debate and attention on animals and their welfare at the expense of children even though child abuse is widespread.

Not a day goes by in Parliament and the House of Lords without animal welfare and protection issues being debated and new laws being discussed or implemented, particularly for our beloved dogs. It seems rare for any updating of child protection legislation or concerted efforts to protect them even though they are no more able to defend themselves or escape abuse than kept animals.

One correspondent once wrote to a U.K national newspaper about the perceived hatred of children and the insane obsession with dogs and pets thus:

As for the the much-repeated claim that the British are the most tolerant nation on earth, I find tolerance very selective. Anyone who dares to maintain that dogs are dangerous and that pet-keeping is anti-social, while children are lovely and far more important, discovers rapidly just how tolerant the British really are.

Daily Mail Letters page.

What chance the welfare of animals when we cannot adequately protect our children from abuse.

The recent shocking incident in Eastbourne where seven children aged between four and seventeen and 36 dogs were found in one house severely neglected and maltreated by a couple should be a wakeup call. The incident was a double whammy involving both types of abuse coinciding in one residence.

The offenders in the case received six-year sentences for child cruelty and eighteen weeks for animal cruelty. The mother received a five-year ban and the father an indefinite ban on keeping animals, but no ban on keeping children as this is of course unthinkable. It will take a lifetime to heal the long-term physical and mental harm inflicted on the children which will take years to rehabilitate them.

child and animal abuse poster
Do we give them equal protection?

Children and babies are no more able to defend themselves or escape abuse than kept animals.

Although we ban people from owning animals when it is considered they are incapable of looking after them or a risk to them, we remove pets from feckless owners who mistreat them and we issue warning and penalty notices we cannot contemplate giving children the same help.

There are many parallels to be made in regard to how we legislate and enforce protection of animals and children. The RSPCA takes the burden of enforcing and prosecuting animal cases even though they have no statutory powers, for which they are often maligned for being too aggressive.

Yet the NSPCC and social services who do have powers to intervene and prosecute seem unable or unwilling to take a stringent approach when death, neglect and cruelty to a child is involved. They rely on the overburdened and cash strapped Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Prosecutions are dropping and social services are inundated and unable to cope in many parts of the country. This state of affairs has continued for decades

Child abuse and murder rampant in the U.K.

On average seven children a month are murdered in the U.K. Between 2015/16 and 2019/20 there was an average 82 child homicides a year in the UK mostly by filicide – the killing of a son or daughter by the parents, with babies under one year old having the highest rate. 55,000 at risk children were on a Child Protection plan and 55,000 were being looked after by local authorities.

When it comes to neglect the figures are even more depressing. Between 2019 and 2020 there were over 23,000 recorded offences. Neglect is defined by not meeting a child’s basic physical and psychological needs which can have serious and long-lasting impacts on a child’s life causing serious harm and even death.  In 2020 The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel received notification of 482 serious incidents relating to 514 children. Of these notifications, 206 were in relation to child deaths and 56 were attributable to abuse or maltreatment.

In the year ending 31 March 2020 there were 3,347 child death reviews in England. 862 cases were identified as having modifiable factors which may have contributed to the death of the child, and which might or could have been avoided such as the family environment, parenting capacity and service provision.

It is right that we have so many animal protection laws, but we should also be spending more time, money and resources to protect our children with more extensive and harsh laws that are policed adequately, because we appear to be severely letting them down at the moment. The incident mentioned above highlights the fact that we haven’t really moved on since Victorian times. What chance the welfare of animals when we cannot adequately protect our children from abuse.