Would-be dog owners should be licensed and undergo tests before receiving a pet, it’s been claimed.

Steve Wood, Hyndburn Stray Dogs in Need charity founder and former Hyndburn Council dog warden, said ‘radical’ legislation was needed to improve standards.

Mr Wood, from Rishton, said a ‘total rethink’ was needed around ways to tackle problems with dangerous dogs and blamed owners lack of responsibility.

He has now called on the government to rip up the ‘ unworkable’ Dangerous Dogs Act and introduce new stricter legislation.

 Mr Wood, who was council dog warden for 11 years, said: “It needs a total rethink and you need to start with the owner. Like you have a licence to drive a car or have a shotgun, you need to licence the person who’s going to own the dog.

“Then you need to have a proficiency test to assess how capable they are of looking after a dog and once they have the dog it must pass an aggression test. I know it sounds harsh and a bit radical but we need to start by being radical.”

Mr Wood said not enough was being done to assess potential dog owners capabilities and called on the UK to follow the examples of European countries such as Germany.

He said: “Over there they have very little trouble because they have strict rules. It might take 10 years to work it all in but we need to be radical to stop tragedies where young kids are getting mauled to death.

“Just like seatbelts it needs to be rolled out nationally. There’s no point just doing it just locally.

“The current dog laws are so unworkable because there are so many get outs.”

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