| Landmarks
In Dog Laws
Dogs
have been our "best friend" since prehistoric times, so
it isn't surprising that some of our earliest recorded laws were
enacted to protect our four-legged companions.
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The
ancient Egyptians, who worshipped canines as deities, wrote laws
regulating the ownership and treatment of dogs at the time of the
early Pharaohs, around 5,000 BC.
In ancient China, the lion dog (a forerunner of the
Pekingese) acquired permanent legal status as the official dog of
the Imperial Palace. Although Chinese peasants sometimes ate other breeds, anyone
caught harming an Imperial dog could be punished by death. |
No
one probably took the protection of dogs as seriously as the ancient
Persians. Anyone who killed
a dog in Persia could expect to receive 500 to 1,000 lashes.
Even giving a canine bad food was punishable by 50 to 200 lashes,
depending on the breed and social status of the dog.
The
dog's legal status began to slip substantially in the Middle Ages, when
most legal thinkers tended to agree with English jurist Sir William
Blackstone, who wrote that dogs had "no intrinsic value" since
they were "creatures kept for whim and pleasure."
Fortunately,
lawmakers of the early 19th century started taking a more enlightened
view of canine rights by passing anti-cruelty legislation.
In 1856, the New York legislature enacted what is widely regarded
as the first meaningful anti-cruelty law, which called for the arrest of
anyone caught promoting a dog fight.
A decade later, the law was expanded to outlaw the malicious
killing of a dog belonging to another person.
The
force of law has also been brought to bear against dogs because of their
owner's misdeeds. In the
Middle Ages, the dogs of criminals and heretics were often tried and
punished along with their owners. There
are records of dogs being put on trial in England, France and Italy up
until the middle of the last century.
As recently as 1906, two men and a dog were put on trial for
murder in Switzerland. All
three were found guilty.
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