Girl 6, Attacked By A Pack Of Dogs Wa

[Tempus Fugit]

One can get signs saying simply "Dog on Premises". They are often sold in rural supplies shops. After all, not all farm dogs are friendly to strangers.

[mantis]

I have heard that it is a fallacy. You can argue that you have gone down to Bunnings and bought the sign to make people aware that you have a dog on the premises, not that the dog is dangerous. There are separate signs for dangerous dogs. These signs are mass made, we (as a community) have been putting them on our gates for quite some years now.

If you have a sign saying beware of the dog, enter at own risk & someone enters your yard & gets bitten, then you will be sued. I was told that by my local Ranger, he said you are admitting liabilty, by knowingly having a vicious dog on the premises.

[Riddick]

If you have a sign saying beware of the dog, enter at own risk & someone enters your yard & gets bitten, then you will be sued. I was told that by my local Ranger, he said you are admitting liabilty, by knowingly having a vicious dog on the premises.

This is what I thought to but I don't know where I got my info from so I have got nothing to back it up.

As it would have just been hear say.

[korbin13]

I have heard that it is a fallacy. You can argue that you have gone down to Bunnings and bought the sign to make people aware that you have a dog on the premises, not that the dog is dangerous. There are separate signs for dangerous dogs. These signs are mass made, we (as a community) have been putting them on our gates for quite some years now.

If you have a sign saying beware of the dog, enter at own risk & someone enters your yard & gets bitten, then you will be sued. I was told that by my local Ranger, he said you are admitting liabilty, by knowingly having a vicious dog on the premises.

The local ranger is not a lawyer. Police aren't lawyers. If it came down to being sued, you would argue in front of a judge.

Lots of things get argued in a court of law, it is up to the determination of the judge of what is reasonable and what is not, not the local ranger.

Edit: Can anyone find any evidence of someone being sued for a dog bite and it being successful because they had a sign on their gate in Australia?

Edited June 9, 2012 by korbin13

[m-sass]

I have heard that it is a fallacy. You can argue that you have gone down to Bunnings and bought the sign to make people aware that you have a dog on the premises, not that the dog is dangerous. There are separate signs for dangerous dogs. These signs are mass made, we (as a community) have been putting them on our gates for quite some years now.

If you have a sign saying beware of the dog, enter at own risk & someone enters your yard & gets bitten, then you will be sued. I was told that by my local Ranger, he said you are admitting liabilty, by knowingly having a vicious dog on the premises.

Another ranger who doesn't know the laws. It's a statutory defence in all states of Australia that a dog is allowed to bite a trespasser on the dog's property unless it's a dog already declared dangerous by council, a restricted breed or a dog licenced as a trained security dog that is not council approved to guard that property. No laws exist that prevents anyone owning or keeping a potentially dangerous pet dog who may bite an intruder, however, if you invite someone into your home or premises, you have the obligation to keep visitors safe from exposure to the dog/s and then if you don't and the dog suddenly snaps at someone being allowed to interact with visitors, then the sign may be used against the owner in admission that the dog knowingly posed a danger to vistors and the owner failed to secure the dog appropriately could be argued I guess?

I am assumimg in this case that the delay on charges being laid is that the dogs were on their own property where the attack took place which presents more legal angles to work through than in if the attack happened in a public place and the dogs were not effectively controlled. Rangers often work from what they are generally told in office loose talk as an overview of the laws and can misconstrude vital legislative components and is therefore IMHO essential for "all" dog owners to know the legislation governing dogs in their respective areas.

Edited June 10, 2012 by m-sass

[Riddick]

So then to this answer above is like a taxi driver not knowing his/her around the city they live in.

This really isn't good enough then.

A ranger should know all the laws that go with the area he/she is in.

No excuses, they have to have a better standard than as I can gather by the replies is I think that is correct.

Back to school council Rangers and learn your job.

[StaceyB]

Why were only three out of six dogs taken to the pound all dogs should have been put down.

There will be an ongoing investigation...there might be details we are unaware of. I agree with you, if all 6 dogs were involved in the attack, then all six really need to be PTS, but there must be a reason we don't know about...maybe the owners only surrendered three willingly, and are fighting for the others, and there might be red tape involved, or not enough proof of the others involvement...who knows?

I read in one of the articles that the other 3 dogs had been removed from the property when the rangers arrived to seize them all. I think they are just delaying the inevitable though, if 3 dogs were put down over the attack it's very unlikely that 3 others involved in the same attack would be let off.

I am a bit curious to know what the breed of the 6th dog is though, only because they listed the breeds of the other 5...

[sandgrubber]

So then to this answer above is like a taxi driver not knowing his/her around the city they live in.

This really isn't good enough then.

A ranger should know all the laws that go with the area he/she is in.

No excuses, they have to have a better standard than as I can gather by the replies is I think that is correct.

Back to school council Rangers and learn your job.

This is not a law. It's an interpretation of laws dealing with liability. I wouldn't want my rates raised enough to pay for hiring lawyers for all dog catchers . . . and other employees who interact with the public. If you did hire a lawyer to handle the signage question you'd probably get a $350/hr version of 'it depends'.

I don't think the signage does much good. The boy has cried wolf too many times. Most houses with BEWARE OF DOG signs don't have dogs, and I generally ignore such signs unless there's a mean-looking dog to back them up. If there's a big mean dog, who needs signage . . . except kids and people with various handicaps who would result in them not reading the sign.

[m-sass]

Why were only three out of six dogs taken to the pound all dogs should have been put down.

There will be an ongoing investigation...there might be details we are unaware of. I agree with you, if all 6 dogs were involved in the attack, then all six really need to be PTS, but there must be a reason we don't know about...maybe the owners only surrendered three willingly, and are fighting for the others, and there might be red tape involved, or not enough proof of the others involvement...who knows?

I read in one of the articles that the other 3 dogs had been removed from the property when the rangers arrived to seize them all. I think they are just delaying the inevitable though, if 3 dogs were put down over the attack it's very unlikely that 3 others involved in the same attack would be let off.I am a bit curious to know what the breed of the 6th dog is though, only because they listed the breeds of the other 5...

It depends if the other 3 dogs were actually involved or whether they were merely onlookers.........they are obliged to determine which dogs of a pack did the damage as they don't necessarily all join in??. Apparantly from a report I read, the 3 dogs PTS was the owner's decision for that action to be taken and wasn't the result of a council order?. It's quite a complex case given that the incident occurred on private property.

This is not a law. It's an interpretation of laws dealing with liability. I wouldn't want my rates raised enough to pay for hiring lawyers for all dog catchers . . . and other employees who interact with the public. If you did hire a lawyer to handle the signage question you'd probably get a $350/hr version of 'it depends'.

A rangers job is to administer the laws as written. Unless a law exists in the legislation preventing beware of dog signs being affixed to a property, such signs are nothing to do with a ranger's job description to provide interpretations upon.

Edited June 10, 2012 by m-sass