Amnesty Suggested For Dogs In Auckland

Auckland City Council could learn something from Hutt City Council’s recent amnesty for unregistered dogs says Western Springs dog owner Dr Cathy Casey.

“Hutt City Council has just ended an amnesty period which allowed owners of previously unregistered dogs to come forward and register their dogs without penalty and for a proportion of the full fee. At the end of the amnesty, 474 new dogs had been registered.” Dr Casey says that a similar amnesty in Auckland would offer the Council a real solution to the unregistered dog problem.

“I attended a recent meeting of the Council’s Works Committee on 19 March at which dog control officers presented a report on the management of dogs in Auckland. While they were able to report that there were 17,598 dogs registered at the end of December last year, they could not even estimate the number of unregistered dogs in the city. Isn’t it time that the Council focussed on that particular problem?

“In association with the amnesty, the Hutt City Council also conducted house to house surveys looking for unregistered dogs. Maybe that’s what Auckland also needs to do,” Dr Casey said.

Dr Casey says she has heard from a number of law abiding - and very irate - dog owners who have received $200 tickets for having their dog off leash.

“It seems to me that all the recent “blitz” has achieved is to punish and alienate responsible dog owners. Maybe it’s time that the Auckland City Council concentrated their dog control efforts on the real villains – the owners who do not take responsibility for the animals in their care.

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