Dog regulations and laws of the 16 federal states

In 2000 most of the federal states created regulations of supposedly dangerous breeds due to a deadly bite accident at Hamburg. The dogs and their holders of the listed breeds had to meet various requirements, so that the dogs could be held at all. In addition, dog and owner had to pass tests, so that the dogs were allowed to be carried out without a muzzle or lash permanently.

The Rottweiler was conducted initially in Brandenburg, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia on such a list. Over the ADRK the context of judicial review proceedings against the local regulations were done first at Lower Saxony. With the experienced administrative judge, Dr. ChristianTünnesen-Harmes, the action was successful at first before the OVG Lüneburg and after revision of the Lower Saxony even before the BVerwG in Berlin.

The BVerwG presented in the first of many subsequent negotiations from different federal states that the breed list is untenable and most of the impugned regulations therefore essential points are void. For the judges it was uncertain whether alone from the breed of a dog it is sufficient to infer a potential hazard and whether other factors such as education and training of the dog, qualifications and aptitude of the holders as well as situational factors could be possibly significant.

Belonging to a particular breed is therefore not an abstract danger and does not justify provisions based on the emergency law defenses of the legislature. Measures resulting from a sole link with the breed do not serve security, but at most of the risk prevention and require special legal basis. This means that a law must be adopted, where it is explicitly defined which breeds are listed.

This was an opportunity to deal immediately with the proposed legislation for some federal states. Some states legislatures summarized their regulations just in a low without altering big something (e.g. North Rhine-Westphalia), other occupied once again a little more intensive with the matter, invited experts to gather information on the spot and then waived entirely on a breed list (e.g. Lower Saxony). Thuringia participated not from the beginning of those catastrophic concoctions and also never presented on a breed list.

Currently the Rottweiler is mentioned on such a breed list in Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Hessen and North Rhine-Westphalia.