I was listening to an interesting item on BBC Radio 5Live this a very popular UK talk radio show. It was with a guest Ryan O'Meara who edits a dog magazine called K9 and the topic was how to make people more responible dog owners.
This was in light of record levels of calls to the RSPCA last year about fighting dogs and a call by them to get tougher on the owners of dogs guilty of dangerous behaviour.
The RSPCA's view seems to concentrate mostly on punishing owners after the event as a preventive measure but Ryan O'Meara talked a lot of sense about surely a better way being to ensure that anyone who gets a dog knows the basics of how to look after a dog and understand its behaviour and needs. He even went so far as to suggest that their should be some kind of licensing of people to denote that they are qualified to look after dogs before allowing them to own dogs and that the licensing procedure should include some form of assessment, similar to the case for driving.
The presenter asked him to come up with an example of some questions that may be typical of a dog test for would be dog owners. I thought you may find these interesting so here are the questions (I thought they were hard so don't be dissapointed if you don't do too well):

1. Who does the Dangerous Dogs act in the UK apply to?
a) Dogs who act dangerously
b) Pitbull Terriers
c) All dog owners

2. Dogs operate on 4 main "drives" can you name 2 of these?

3. To what breed group of dogs do Rottweilers belong?

4. Is it the law that any dog who goes out in public must be vaccinated?

5. When a dog is yawning what mood or emotion does this indicate that it is feeling?

Just to make sure that you didn't peak, I've put the answers in a separate thread:

Responsible dog owner test results

Thanks to Ryan O'Meara for these questions

You can find more information about new (and old) legislation in relation to dangerous dogs and responsible dog ownership on the UK's DEFRA website:

Getting tough on irresponsible dog owners

You can also access the BBC news article discussing The Huge Rise in Dog Fights Reported that was being referred to in the Radio 5 Lives broadcast this morning.