A dog attack on one of our community housing officers has highlighted a major inadequacy in the law. The police were unable to get this dog put down because the incident happened in a private home and the dog in question was not classed as ‘dangerous’ by law. 

 Because we could not prove that there was any reason for the tenant to believe the dog was dangerous, we felt that we could not show sufficient fault on the tenant’s part to get a possession order. An injunction - forbidding the tenant to keep dogs at the home for 12 months - was our only option and one that we would take again.

At only 16-months-old, we are a new stock transfer organisation and we have clauses in our new tenancy agreement about not keeping animals in our properties. Our parent council, Torfaen, had similar clauses but rarely enforced them.  As such, it was unlikely that a court would grant possession for breaching these clauses when so many tenants have been ignoring them for so long without any sanctions. 

It is bad enough that a colleague was badly injured and traumatised by the attack, but this is further compounded by our frustrating inability to ensure that this dog will never bite anyone again.

Staff had been to the home in question on many occasions and had no problems with the dog, nor had they felt that it could be dangerous.

We want to prepare staff better for unpredictable situations like this which happened when a colleague was entering a home that she believed to be safe.

Since the attack we have asked our tenants to lock dogs away when housing officers visit.

I hope other social landlords look at what we have done and remind their staff to risk assess every situation in which they find themselves.

Duncan Forbes is chief executive of Bron Afon Community Housing

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