TO KILL CATS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 6, 6 July 1935, Page 21

TO KILL CATS

PRIVILEGE OF DOGS

Mr. S. J. Bliss, the Magistrate at Graf ton, New South Wales, has held that an owner of a dog which had killed a cat was not liable, as the dog was following its natural instincts.

A woman sued a neighbour, the owner of a greyhound dog which, it was alleged, trespassed on plaintiffs property and killed a purebred Persian cat, valued at £15. Plaintiff said that the same dog had killed a cat the week before. '

Counsel for defendant submitted that the Dog and Goat Act did not apply to injury to a cat, as the definition, pf animals did not include a cat. Liability did not attach to his client at common law, as to make him responsible \he must have knowledge of some vicious propensity beyond the common instincts of the dog. The hostility of cats and dogs was proverbial, and if a dog fought a cat he was mere-, ly obeying a natural impulse. There was no evidence that this dog had a vicious or mischievous propensity, nor proof that the defendant knew it. Plaintiff's counsel replied that the dog had previously killed a cat, and there was evidence that the defendant knew its mischievous propensity.

The Magistrate, after adjourning to consider authorities, said he sympathised with the plaintiff, but the action must fail. Dogs had been given a favoured position. The owner of a dog was not responsible for mischief done in following its common instincts. Plaintiff was nonsuited.