Taking the Lead campaign launched in Merseyside
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We have today (Monday 24 July) launched our Taking the Lead campaign to help reduce incidents of dog bites in Merseyside, starting this summer.
The campaign is being supported by Merseyside Dog Safety Partnership (MDSP), the Police and Crime Commissioner, the Blue Cross, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, University of Liverpool, Royal Mail, the Communication Worker Union (CWU) and local councils.
The aim of Taking the Lead is to offer important safety tips to all dog owners in Merseyside about looking after their pet, especially around children, which could prevent serious injuries.
To help with this aim, over the summer holidays Merseyside Police will post a series of informative and useful videos on our social media platforms to educate dog owners as well as join with partners to speak to people in parks and other public places.
The videos will involve our partners, who will offer their expert tips and advice on ownership and how to reduce the chances of dog bites.
Police data shows that children under 16 are most likely to be the victims of dog bites and this risk increases significantly in the summer when more children are at home with their pets or around other people’s dogs, and are also spending more time in public spaces.
Although parks and beaches have been identified as hot spots for incidents, dog bites can happen anywhere and most bites occur in the home. Any offences that happen in private can be prosecuted in the same way as bites in public.
Inspector Katie Wilkinson said: “We know that during the summer holidays, when children are spending more time at home, the number of dog bites increases.
“By running Taking the Lead as the schools break up, Merseyside Police hopes to give children and parents the knowledge and skills to stay safe over the six week holidays and in the future. This will help to reduce the number of youngsters hurt by dogs and improve their understanding of dogs and their needs, regardless of their breed or size.
“We are determined to reduce the numbers of children and adults in Merseyside being hurt by dogs. It is crucial that we educate youngsters at an early age about how to be around dogs.
“Some of our simple messages includes not bothering dogs when they are eating their dinner or when they are sleeping and not approaching a dog you don’t know.
“If walking your dog out in your community, always make sure they are on a lead and consider whether they need to be muzzled.
“Dogs must always have access to comfortable and warm shelter, water, companionship and entertainment such as toys. Make sure that your garden or yard is always secure so that a dog cannot accidentally escape.”
Merseyside’s Police Commissioner Emily Spurrell said: “Here on Merseyside we have seen the devastating consequences a dog bite can have. Yet, we know there are some simple steps that dog owners can take to help protect people, particularly vulnerable children. I urge dog owners across Merseyside to take the time to watch these videos, listen to the expert advice and think about the measures they can take to prevent anyone getting hurt by a dog over the summer and beyond.”
Statistics provided by the School of Veterinary Science at the University of Liverpool shows that in Merseyside, there tends to be more dog bites in areas with socio-economic challenges.
Between 1998 and 2018 around 5% of all national hospital admissions in relation to dog bites occurred in Merseyside, with Knowsley containing the most incidents per populations across 333 local authorities in England.
In terms of the other boroughs, St Helens was the fifth highest local authority for hospitalisation rates, Liverpool was sixth, Sefton was 30th and Wirral was 106th.
Dr John Tulloch, Lecturer in Veterinary Public Health at the university of Liverpool said: “We know that dog bites are a community problem, and the Take the Lead campaign is a fantastic approach to working with local residents to help reduce the risk that dogs can pose. We fully endorse and support the ongoing work of Merseyside Police to helpcommunities live and work with their dogs in a safe way that will help to avoid life-changing injuries.”
Dog behaviour expert Dr Carri Westgarth, from the University of Liverpool: “It is important to remember that any dog can bite regardless of how well you know it, and most bites will occur in the owner’s home. It’s important to give dogs their own safe space to be alone, give them plenty of exercise and mental stimulation, and when your dog wants to be left alone leave them be.
“Dog bites to children can be very severe so ensure that you observe children and dogs closely and intervene when necessary. Dogs do not want to bite you, it is a last resort response for them, so watch out for any warning signs of them being uncomfortable in a situation and remove yourselves, or them, from it.”
Merseyside Police also has the highest number of reported dog bites causing injury of any police force in the country.
In 2022, there were tragically two fatal dog attacks in Merseyside.
On Tuesday 21 March, 17-month-old Bella-Rea Birch was killed after she was attacked by a dog in her home on Bidston Avenue in St Helens.
The dog involved, which was humanely destroyed, was an American Bully XL, a legal breed not subject to any prohibitions under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.
On Monday 3 October, Ann Dunn, aged 65, died following a dog attack at a house in St Brigid’s Crescent, in Kirkdale.
Five American bulldogs, which were inside the property, were handed over and humanely destroyed.
In January this year, a three-year-old boy (pictured below) suffered serious facial injuries after he was attacked by a French Bulldog inside a home in Sefton. The dog was rehomed with the help of the Dogs Trust.
The youngster’s mum has described the impact the incident has had on her son, not only physically, but also how it has affected his self-esteem and confidence.
She said: “My son was attacked by a family member’s French Bulldog when he was left unattended as the adults had left the room. It was very quick and a huge shock resulting in him losing 60% of his top lip.
“He’s had a big operation since to repair it and could potentially need reconstruction in the future. It took him a while to build up his confidence to eat and drink and start to talk again. Even though he’s only three he is really self conscious about how it looks. I think it’s really important that dog owners are careful with their dogs around children.”
Mr Christian Duncan, Consultant Plastic Surgeon at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust said “At Alder Hey we see children with dog attack injuries several times a week. It is often the child’s face that comes into contact with the dog, so we treat lots of cheek bites and injuries on prominent parts of the face i.e. parts of the nose, lip and parts of the ear. These injuries can be life-changing. By raising awareness of both the risks and appropriate behaviour around dogs, I hope the Taking the Lead campaign can help reduce these kinds of injuries.”
Kerry Taylor, Education Manager at Blue Cross said: “It is so important to understand your dog’s behaviour and understand the signs that they are uncomfortable in any given situation. Do not leave children unsupervised around dogs and baby gates are a good idea to give dogs the space they may need to have time to themselves.”
Another partner who is supporting the campaign is the Royal Mail, who recently announced there had been 1,916 dog attacks reported on its staff last year across the UK, an average of 37 attacks every week.
Lizz Lloyd, the Health & Safety Director of Royal Mail Group Limited, said: “A dog attack can have long lasting and serious effects, with some leading to permanent and disabling injuries resulting in staff being unable or unfit to resume work within the communities they serve.
“We know the number of attacks rises during the school holidays and in the summer months when parents and children are at home and dogs are sometimes allowed unsupervised in the garden or out onto the streets without restraints.
“Please support us in creating a safer community approach to responsible dog ownership by keeping pets safely away from the door or gate when a postie calls. Simple steps to secure your pet, such as this and letterbox guards make a big difference for us all and keeps your pet safe too.”
In the past decade, more than 30,000 postal workers have been attacked by dogs in the UK, with research estimating that over 80% of these attacks were at the front door.
Approximately 36 postal workers are attacked by dogs every week, while 2,000-3,000 are attacked every year and over 1,000 have even had a finger bitten off or a similar sever injury while delivering the mail.
Communication Workers Union National Health and Safety Officer Dave Joyce said: “Dog attacks remain a major safety hazard and concern for postal workers across the UK, and the scale of the problem shouldn’t be underestimated. I remain very concerned about the continuing UK dog attack epidemic and national crisis we face.
“The number of people admitted to hospital for dog bites has tripled in the last 20 years and apart from the personal costs, pain, suffering, disablement and loss of life, it costs the NHS around £75 million a year with NHS data showing that more than 10,000 people a year need in-patient hospital treatment after a dog attack and many more attend A&E – many of those victims are postal workers.
“If you’re expecting the post or any deliveries, make sure your dog is out of the way and secure. Most dog attacks happen when you open the door to collect or sign for parcels. Before answering, put your dog in another room and teach children to do the same, especially when they’re at home during school holidays when we see a ‘spike’ in attacks on Postmen and Postwomen. Consider installing a letterbox cage if your dog has a tendency to attack your mail. If it is not practical to secure your dog during the day, consider installing an external mailbox on the edge of your property.”
Liverpool City Councillor Laura Robertson-Collins, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, Communities and Streetscene, added: “During the summer holidays, many families head outdoors to enjoy our parks and open spaces, where dogs are being exercised. Working with Merseyside Police and other partners, we are reminding owners of their responsibilities, as well as providing advice for parents, carers and children. It is about balancing dog ownership with keeping children safe, which is why last year we introduced a Public Spaces Protection Order preventing dogs from being taken into play areas and enclosed sports grounds.”
Cllr Ian Moncur, Sefton Council’s Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing said: “For the vast majority of the time dogs are, as the old saying goes, our best friends.
“Sadly though, there are occasions when that great relationship can go wrong, which is why Sefton is signed up to the Taking the Lead campaign.
“Taking the Lead will provide dog owners with expert tips to controlling their dog and protecting others in public spaces as well as giving people coming into contact with dogs, valuable advice on understanding behaviour and actions that may trigger an aggressive response.”
Another key focus of Taking the Lead is advising people to think before they buy a dog and research the breed characteristics to make sure they can provide that breed of dog with the right home setting.
The breeding of large bull breeds by unlicensed breeders for onward sale to some people who keep them as status dogs instead of pets, or who cannot provide the living space and stimulation for these breeds of dog, is also concerning the police and the Merseyside Dog Safety Partnership.
These breeders are unregistered and the dogs and puppies are often badly treated and kept in poor conditions.
They are then placed into homes that are unsuitable for their size and this poses significant risks to the people who live there.
Criminals who breed status dogs do so for profit and in many cases it funds serious and organised crime in our local communities.
When finding the right dog for your home, you can always check the Dogs Trust website for the latest advice, which includes reputable breeders: Dogs Rehoming & Dog Rescue Charity | Dogs Trust
Inspector Wilkinson added: “We understand there are a lot of dog owners who don’t have the right home for larger breeds of dogs.
“This is particularly the case for XL Bully type breeds. These dogs are becoming increasingly popular but many owners don’t have a suitable home due to their size and they don’t provide the dogs with the right exercise and training.
“I must stress that we are not trying to demonise any particular breed of dog or their owners, but we are working with our partners to promote responsible dog ownership and to make sure that owners are aware of the impact on the wider community of their dog’s actions. Owners should remember that every dog, not matter how well trained, has the potential to bite.
“We also make no excuses for targeting those owners who use their dogs to intimidate others, or allow their dogs to bite people and other animals, or cause fear of injury to other. Owners have to be aware that they may well be held accountable for their actions under the law, and could end up with a criminal record.
“I would also urge people to contact police on 101 if they have any concerns about dangerous dogs in their area. Residents should be able to feel safe in the community and if they do raise concerns about dogs then these will be fully investigated. People can also contact Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.”
Animals Shouldn’t Be Weapons for the Police
Horses and dogs don’t understand why they’ve been conscripted into human law enforcement. Forcing them to inflict violence on people, and get hurt in return, just isn’t right.
filed in Animals & Nature
In the third season of the BBC crime drama Peaky Blinders, there’s a crude joke that’s taken on new relevance this week. “What animal has got a prick halfway up its back?” asks John Shelby, one of the show’s gangster protagonists. “A cavalry horse!,” comes the punchline. The jab at the officers of the British Empire made sense in the 1920s, when the show is set—and it makes even more sense in 2025, when American cops have reminded everyone how they force animals to brutalize humans.
Across the United States, the cavalry has been called out. In California, Texas, and several other states, thousands of people have been rising up in protest against Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and the masked ICE agents who’ve been tearing neighborhoods apart with their deportation raids. In response, Trump has tried to crush the protests with military force. He’s targeting Los Angeles in particular, where he’s sent in 4,000 troops from the National Guard and 700 Marines. Governor Gavin Newsom calls the move “authoritarianism,” and it is. But Newsom is just as guilty, bragging about working with ICE “over 10,500 times since I became governor” and promising to “deal with civil unrest” himself using the LAPD. He agrees with Trump that the protests should be put down; he just wants to be the one in charge of the repression. Under Newsom’s watch, the LAPD have been beating people with batons, choking them with tear gas and pepper spray, and even shooting journalists with so-called “less lethal” rubber bullets. (Really, these can be very lethal if they hit a vulnerable spot, and can easily blind their targets). In a lot of cases, the cops dealing out this violence are mounted on horseback. And this past Sunday, an LAPD riot cop trampled over a protester, putting their life at risk.
The footage of the attack has gone viral online, and it’s easy to see why, because it’s terrifying—both for the protester and for the horse. In the video, the person is knocked down and lying in the street. They’re alone and empty-handed, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and they’re surrounded by cops in riot gear. At least five of the cops are on horses, and one of them runs directly over the fallen protester. Then another mounted cop strikes the person with a large stick from behind as they’re trying to recover their bearings and stand up. Then another cop on foot throws them to the ground again. It’s the kind of clip that, if it came from any other nation, would be described with terms like “shock troops” and “crackdown by the regime.”
As several commentators have pointed out, it doesn’t look like the horse wanted to do it. In the footage, you can see that it tries its best to step over the person, not on them. And this makes sense, because horses are naturally shy, skittish animals. Their typical instinct is to flee, not attack. What’s more, their limbs are notoriously fragile, and stomping on a full-grown human could easily cause them to fall over or break a leg. The animal was probably terrified. But for the defenseless person on the ground, it’s even worse, because police horses weigh anywhere from 1,200 to 1,900 pounds (not including the rider). That kind of weight, if it comes thumping down on your head or chest, could easily kill someone, especially if the horse is wearing metal shoes. The Los Angeles incident is a perfect example of why cops should not be allowed to use animals as weapons in the first place.
Cops, and the people who work with them, make no secret of the way they use animals to dominate and control people. On the website for Haven Gear, a company that sells riot shields, armor, and other police equipment, horses are compared to military hardware: “Militaries have used cavalry units for thousands of years, and police-mounted units stem from that tradition.” The company goes on to tout the “more intimidating presence” a cop on horseback has, boasting that “in crowded events, that large, intimidating body of an animal works to dissuade malcontents.” True enough. The threat of being crushed under a powerful set of hooves would tend to “dissuade” anyone, just as any violent threat would. Notably, police departments themselves describe one of the primary purposes of police horses as “crowd management” or “crowd control”—a euphemism for the suppression of protests, labor strikes, and other mass movements of people that governments don’t want to occur.
This latest trampling in Los Angeles is not unique. In Houston, a mounted cop ran over a woman named Melissa Gomez during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, leading her to sue for “severe pain” and “personal injuries.” In Columbus, Ohio, a community organizer named Tammy Fournier Alsaada was “knocked down [and] hit by a police horse” during a demonstration for George Floyd the same year. During the Canadian truckers’ protests in 2022, police in Ottawa used their horses to knock over and trample people, too—which, despite the underlying stupidity of protesting against COVID safety restrictions, they didn’t deserve. And the harm goes the other way, to the animals themselves. Just in the last few years, police horses have died because they were scared by a drone and ran into a post, or collapsed in the heat while patrolling a carnival, or because the cops got “distracted by paperwork” and neglected to feed or water them. That isn’t good for anyone, human or animal.
Being involved with the police isn’t good for dogs, either, because they’re getting weaponized in the same way. By one estimate, there are around 50,000 active police dogs in the United States, ranging from specialized drug-sniffing dogs to the ones in all-purpose “K-9” units. Even the training for these dogs is cruel, with “prong collars, choke chains, and forced submission accomplished by seizing dogs’ testicles” in routine use, and the dogs themselves are “bred for aggressiveness” over generations. According to the American Kennel Club, the “most popular discipline of the police dog is suspect apprehension,” which is inherently violent: “Police dogs are trained to bite dangerous suspects and hold them hostage.” As a consequence, a lot of police dogs die and get injured every year. They’re shot, they’re stabbed, and they’re strangled, all because the police have deliberately put them in dangerous situations rather than face the risk themselves. (And that’s when the cops don’t accidentally shoot their own dogs or kill them by leaving them in hot cars.)
In many cases, though, it isn’t really “dangerous suspects” the dogs are unleashed on. Like with the horses, it’s protesters, racial minorities, and anyone else the police are hostile to. During the Civil Rights era, police dogs were routinely used to attack Black people, including children, during rallies and marches. The practice dates all the way back to slavery, when bloodhounds and other dogs were used to track and recapture enslaved people who tried to escape, and it has persisted through the decades. In his song “Reagan,” Atlanta rapper Killer Mike recalls how the police used dogs to rampage through his neighborhood in the 1980s:
They declared a war on drugs, like a war on terror
But what it really did was let the police terrorize whoever
But mostly Black boys, but they would call us “niggas”
And lay us on our belly, while they fingers on they triggers
They boots was on our head, they dogs was on our crotches
And they would beat us up if we had diamonds on our watches
This isn’t just a dramatic line in a rap song, and it didn’t end in the Reagan years. In 2019, the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine published an analysis of 32,951 individual dog bites by K-9 units, which accounted for 1.1 percent of all dog bites in American emergency rooms for the years 2005-2013. They found that 42 percent of the people bitten had been Black, a wildly disproportionate result since only around 14 percent of the U.S. population is. The data also suggests that the majority of people bitten by police dogs are not threats at all. According to statistics released by the Houston Police Department, the cops in that city attacked 104 people with dogs in a time period from March 2022 to May 2023—and from that number, 77 were ultimately “either charged with nonviolent offenses or nothing at all.” Some of them were likely victims of what police departments call “pain compliance”—the use of a dog bite to make someone stop moving and obey. (The more truthful word is “torture.”) In Indianapolis, the Marshall Project found that someone was bitten by a police dog every five days, that 60 percent of those people were “suspected in only low-level and non-violent crimes or traffic infractions,” and that “more than half” were Black. It’s a consistent pattern of pointless, sadistic, and racist violence, harming humans and animals alike.
The really perverse aspect of all this, too, is that police use their animals as propaganda weapons as well as literal ones. Along with “crowd management,” one of the primary reasons they list for having dogs and horses around is “community outreach” and even “K9 public relations.” Meeting a cute German Shepard or a beautiful horse “softens people and provides a connection between the police and public,” says one police captain. Never mind that the same animal will be used to corral and brutalize “the public” the moment anyone steps out of line. This form of “copaganda” even extends into the realm of kids’ cartoons, with the wildly popular Paw Patrol series revolving around a heroic police dog named Chase. The kids aren’t told who real police dogs chase, and what they do to them when they catch up. Through depictions of animals, they’re taught that the police are there to help and protect them, when that’s the exact opposite of how it really works.
The cops should not be allowed to do these things. They should not be able to ride horses into protests, beating people with sticks from the saddle and running people over. They should not be able to breed and train dogs specifically to bite people, especially when it turns out that most of the people being bitten pose no threat. And to their credit, some of the major animal rights organizations in this country are starting to realize it. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has called for an end to the use of K-9 units, citing a graphic 2024 incident where a cop punched his own dog in the face and tried to defend it as acceptable “correction.” They also point out that, with more and more technology at their disposal, cops don’t truly need dogs. The Australian division of PETA has also urged police in Melbourne to stop using horses after several of the animals were “punched and struck by projectiles” during a protest. That position—police abolition for the animal world, essentially—is a sensible one, and it’s in keeping with the overall principle that animals are not things for humans to use and throw away.
Meanwhile, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) hasn’t quite gotten there yet. Their policy page still says the organization “supports the use of horses and dogs in law enforcement [and] homeland security,” as long as the animals are “humanely raised, trained and afforded every consideration for their safety and well-being, including the use of bullet-resistant vests.” That’s a softer and more compromised stance, in need of some work. Really, there is no reason we have to allow the police to keep deploying dogs to bite us and horses to run us down in the street, and for those animals to get hurt doing it. In the ongoing effort to cut down gargantuan police budgets and distribute the money to social services instead, things like K-9 units and mounted “crowd control” are an obvious target.
A popular slogan holds that there are “no bad dogs, only bad owners.” In other words, if a domesticated animal is acting in some harmful way, it’s probably the fault of a human who has trained it badly, abused it, or neglected it. If that’s the case, the police are some of the worst owners around. The whole point of a police force owning animals is to harass, control, intimidate, and harm people, and to deceive them into thinking the police are friendlier than they really are.
It would be easy to say that the slogan ACAB (All Cops are Bastards) includes police horses. But that’s the wrong conclusion, because it’s not the horses’ fault, or the dogs’ either. They’re being forced into situations and behaviors that aren’t natural for them, and in the process they’re being harmed too. It’s the police themselves who are the problem.
