The police need to sharpen their teeth

Many tasks fall on the shoulders of Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi and his personnel. One of the most important is protecting Israel's citizens from violence. Among other things, the police are supposed to protect Israeli children from aggressive dogs and their irresponsible owners. But repeated incidents of dogs attacking children show that the police usually demonstrate an impressive presence only after the fact.

Another horrifying incident occurred last weekend in which a dog attacked a girl in Kiryat Ekron before her father's eyes. The girl's face was seriously injured. In this case as well, the dog's owners had failed to control him and not bothered to muzzle him. There have been reports of similar cases in other places over the past year.

Current law obligates dog owners to keep their dogs on a leash when they are out, and to otherwise control them to prevent attacks. And the Rabies Ordinance and municipal bylaws give the authorities sufficient tools with which to force dog owners to prevent their dogs from running around in a dangerous fashion.

A year ago, another brick was added to the existing legal framework with the approval of regulations under the Dangerous Dogs Law. This law lists dangerous breeds, and imposes various restrictions on raising, selling or owning them. The law obligates such dogs to be neutered or spayed, and does not allow them to reproduce. The police are obligated to act against those who violate this law, as are veterinarians employed by the local authorities, who are supposed to keep house pets under supervision, and municipal supervisory agencies.

But, as in many other areas of Israeli life, it seems that the law enforcement agencies thought the very fact that this stringent law had been legislated, combined with the shock created when a girl died of a dog bite last year, would be enough to change reality. They hoped that dog owners would become more responsible, and would fear to own dangerous dogs in defiance of the terms laid out in the law.

But not all owners of dangerous dogs are responsible. Some of them are criminals who view walking a dangerous dog as a demonstration of virility and status. The sight of Amstaffs and pit bulls running loose continues to be extremely common in many towns. A search of Internet sites reveals that many dog owners offer pups for sale, thereby violating the law that is meant to keep such dogs from breeding.

The police and local authorities do not deal with the dog problem systematically. There are no enforcement operations, and it is virtually impossible to spy a policeman approaching dog owners and doing what is necessary to deter them from continuing to allow their dogs to run loose, with neither leash nor muzzle.

How many children with injured faces or senior citizens terrified by dog attacks are necessary for the police to start treating illegal possession of dogs as a serious crime? It is impossible to expect the force to eliminate all dangerous dogs in the near future, but it is possible to demand that it start deploying policemen to deal with this problem on a regular basis, so that the message will start to sink in, and dog owners who scoff at the law will begin to fear the response of those responsible for enforcing it.