Dog aggression
The responsibility for dealing with dog aggression is split locally between the police and Test Valley Borough Council’s Environmental Health Service. The most serious incidents involving significant injury to a person, will normally be investigated by the police.
You should contact the police if:
- a dangerous dog poses an immediate danger to the public
- a dog has bitten or attacked a person where the skin has been broken, or has attacked another dog and a person is injured during the same incident
- there has been a dog attack on any registered or licensed assistance dog, for example, a guide dog for someone who is blind
- a dog has attacked or is worrying livestock
- someone has not followed the rules for keeping XL Bully type dogs or any other banned dogs
The police may ask us to help investigate some of these cases, so you don't need to report them to us too.
We will generally deal with all other, less serious, incidents of dog aggression, including dog attacks on another dog in a public place and nuisance or anti-social behaviour issues involving dogs. We will record and review all reports of dog aggression to help us identify repeated incidents involving any one dog, and prioritise the most serious incidents for further investigation. Depending on the cases we are dealing with at the time, unfortunately we won't always be able to follow-up on every incident.
To report an incident of dog aggression please see the link on this page.