Responsibility & Accountability: Cape Talk 18 October 2022

Cape Talk interview. Please LISTEN our stance is clear. And we will stand by our call to hold those who have not done their job and enforced the law, and those who irresponsibly own, breed and re-home dogs with unstable temperaments to account. They have risked human lives and caused harm to good owners and dogs.

“These dogs have become too popular and too easy to acquire… Those who are tasked with enforcing the law have decided not to… You are legally responsible for anything your dog does… If your dog mauls somebody, it’s a criminal offence!” PBFSA

“It is time that the SA government imposes a complete ban on the ownership of pit bulls as domestic animals,” reads the petition.

Clarence Ford interviews Sizwe Kupelo of the Sizwe Kupelo Foundation and Lins Rautenbach of the Pit Bull Federation of South Africa.

A petition to ban South Africans from having pit bulls as pets is gaining momentum.

The petition follows a horrific attack in Gqerberha recently in which 10-year-old Storm Nuku was killed by his family’s two pit bulls.

A muzzled pit bull

Enough is enough! We cannot wait for another death… We are pleased with the response to our petition… We call on South Africans to… sign the petition… South Africans are tired of this breed…

Sizwe Kupelo

The Sizwe Kupelo Foundation wrote to Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Thoko Didiza, asking her to impose a complete ban on the ownership of pit bulls as domestic animals.

The Foundation is also calling for the castration of male dogs and the sterilisation of female pit bulls.

Countries, where the ownership of pit bulls is banned, include Russia, Finland, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Portugal, parts of Germany, parts of China, parts of Brazil and parts of Australia.

“We cannot continue losing young people like Storm Nuku to these vicious dogs that have shown time and again that they should not be kept as pets,” said the foundation founder Sizwe Kupelo.

“May young Storm Nuku rest in perfect peace.”

Not everyone is in support of an outright ban on owning a pit bull, with some listeners arguing that owners should be held responsible and that other breeds can also be problematic.

It is 100% the owner’s fault… If we start castrating, sterilising, and banning those breeds, we might as well do it to any other breed… A German Shepard is just as likely to snap… There are responsible pit bull owners!

Listener

The Pit Bull Federation of South Africa says an outright ban on owning a pit bull would not be effective as people would just adopt a different aggressive breed.

It cautions people against buying a pit bull.

These dogs have become too popular and too easy to acquire… Those who are tasked with enforcing the law have decided not to… You are legally responsible for anything your dog does… If your dog mauls somebody, it’s a criminal offence!

Lins Rautenbach, Pit Bull Federation of South Africa

RELATED: You can’t rehabilitate a dog’s aggression – Pit Bull Federation of SA

In some of the pictures we have received; you cannot recognise the victim. There is nothing left! The amount of soft tissue and bone trauma these dogs inflict is something horrific… This little boy’s body looked like roadkill…

Lins Rautenbach, Pit Bull Federation of South Africa