Banning vicious dog breeds?

I have been thinking on this for quite some time, ever since the Dutch government has been talking about new regulations and behavioural tests... and the banning of certain 'notorious' breeds.

I don't think they should ban any breeds. But I do think that the legislation should change when it comes to liability. I think dog owners should be able to certify behaviour -there are fairly good behavioural tests for dogs these days, to test the level of agression. They are not foolproof, but certainly a good indicator. The best thing would be to offer all dog owners the opportunity to have their dogs voluntarily behaviour certified for free or for very small fee (with a chip as certification, hopefully not so easy to fake). This could be financed out of the huge amount of dog taxes we pay every year! Then, if your dog attacks someone or if there are valid complaints about agressive behaviour and there is no certification, YOU should be held financially liable. There should be criminal liability for the owner of an uncertified dog if there are injuries. As far as i'm concerned that could result in a whopping great fine up to prison sentence.

If your dog fails the test I think the best solution would be that owners would be required to have such dogs always leashed and muzzled in public. That's the only part I think could be a problem - I think the more rigid thinkers might say: fail the test, kill the dog. And that would not do. You would never get dog owners to co-operate with such a certification scheme if they thought their dogs would be put down on the basis of the outcome. Quite rightly so!

In my opinion this would work if the three key factors are present: a voluntary basis, serious consequences of non-certification, and no life-or-death decisions based on the outcome of the behavioural test.