mandatory desexing<\/a> and minimum height requirements on fences, along with \u201ca strike system, so if your dog is caught roaming two or three times, it\u2019s gone\u201d. <\/p>\n![\"Roaming]()
Roaming dogs have increasingly become a problem in Northland and other parts of the country.<\/p>\n
Since her petition closed, she has emailed \u2013 or is in the process of emailing \u2013 Whang\u0101rei MP Shane Reti, Northland MP Grant McCallum, Northcote MP Dan Bidois, and Arena Williams, the MP for Manurewa in South Auckland.<\/p>\n
Bidois has offered to present the petition to Parliament on Clarke\u2019s behalf. It would then be considered by the Petitions Select Committee.<\/p>\n
Clarke was also in touch with Whang\u0101rei Hospital emergency doctor Gary Payinda, who told the Northern Advocate he\u2019d seen \u201cfar too many victims of dog attacks out in the community\u201d. <\/p>\n
Payinda, who was selected as Labour\u2019s candidate for Whang\u0101rei in November, said emergency doctors in Northland \u201croutinely see the damage that marauding dogs do the public, often to children, sometimes joggers, sometimes random passerby\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us would agree you should have a right to walk around in your community without being attacked or mauled by one or more dogs. It\u2019s all too common.\u201d<\/p>\n
Payinda said roaming dogs were a \u201cfrequent occurrence\u201d in Whang\u0101rei.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could walk into half a dozen neighbourhoods in Whang\u0101rei and not have difficulty finding loose unregistered dogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree with her [Clarke] in feeling that regular folks do feel threatened by this. <\/p>\n
\u201cSomething does need to be done to address this problem.\u201d <\/p>\n
Local Government Minister Simon Watts said he was aware of Clarke\u2019s petition and shared the concerns raised by many Northlanders regarding the challenges of roaming dogs.<\/p>\n
Watts said the Department of Internal Affairs [DIA] was continuing work on \u201cnon-regulatory approaches to support better dog control\u201d. <\/p>\n
This includes improving the quality and consistency of dog-related data, he said.<\/p>\n
Under Section 10A of the Dog Control Act 1996, councils must report to the DIA each financial year on their dog control policy and practices. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe department is working with stakeholders to improve and standardise the reporting template, as well as undertaking analysis of the information provided. <\/p>\n
\u201cHaving a uniform template across councils will make the analysis of information more robust and easier to identify potential problem areas and\/or courses of action.\u201d<\/p>\n
The department is also working with the local government sector to \u201crefresh the dog control enforcement guidelines\u201d, Watts said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis will support consistent dog control enforcement across New Zealand. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe updated guidelines are expected to be issued towards the beginning of quarter three, 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with finance, roading, and social issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWithout a doubt, every person has had a gutsful … no one is feeling safe out in their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4619,5842,537,9219,14724,91003,266,23158,111,43,139,1067,69,90,128,18661,58660,6695,137658,111298,8214,199,61,1354],"class_list":["post-231727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-act","tag-calling","tag-crisis","tag-dog","tag-further","tag-gearing","tag-government","tag-nationwide","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-petition","tag-pushes","tag-quest","tag-regions","tag-remedy","tag-roaming","tag-sparked","tag-take","tag-to","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}