Hawthorne welcomed the review.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so pleased it is being talked about and the Government are trying to do something,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m reading stories daily in the news about horrific dog attacks on people and animals. Dogs like this need to be destroyed and the owners prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Giving councils greater powers when it comes to responding to dog attacks will be part of a government review of current dog control regulations. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
Hawthorne said she knew of another attack on a horse rider at a beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure if attacks are increasing or if they are being reported more, but it\u2019s really frightening. A week after my attack, a friend was also attacked on our beach by a different dog while riding her horse. She\u2019s very traumatised by it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hawthorne encouraged anyone who had experienced a dog attack to speak out and report the matter.<\/p>\n
Dogs and their owners are subject to the Tair\u0101whiti Dog Control Bylaw 2023<\/a> under the current Dog Control Act 1996, with dangerous dogs and attacks <\/a>able to be reported to the council.<\/p>\n Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) also welcomed the Government\u2019s plan to review dog control laws.<\/p>\n LGNZ president and Gisborne Mayor Rehette Stoltz said no one should have to feel unsafe in their own neighbourhoods, and dog control rules as they currently stood were not sufficient.<\/p>\n In a recent meeting, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and LGNZ discussed how the risk of dog attacks could be reduced, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cFollowing the meeting with the Prime Minister, we spoke with frontline dog control staff from a sample of councils, who set out the challenges they faced and suggested solutions to reduce the risk of further attacks.<\/p>\n \u201cThese insights were shared with the Prime Minister and the Local Government Minister, Simon Watts, to support the Government\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n Councils shared that overhauling the Dog Control Act would have the greatest impact and that they required stronger, proactive powers.<\/p>\n This included being able to intervene earlier when aggressive dogs posed a risk to public safety, strengthening powers through bylaws to require fencing and desexing where required as preventive measures, and changes that enabled better information-sharing between key agencies.<\/p>\n \u201cOne council we spoke to was preparing to prosecute the owners of two dogs, but couldn\u2019t legally hold the animals in the meantime,\u201d Stoltz said.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of those dogs then went on to attack someone. Changes need to prevent instances like this happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorne welcomed the review. \u201cI\u2019m so pleased it is being talked about and the Government are trying to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4619,95,5660,34609,32319,7972,9436,20491,10474,12639,9219,27253,12506,7237,88246,14568,685,12472,111,43,139,69,2833,5256,2738,2171,50821,1071,53355,1337,1316,379],"class_list":["post-351049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-act","tag-and","tag-attacks","tag-backed","tag-backs","tag-beach","tag-chase","tag-chased","tag-control","tag-crackdown","tag-dog","tag-endured","tag-gisborne","tag-governments","tag-horrendous","tag-horse","tag-last","tag-laws","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ordeal","tag-overhaul","tag-owner","tag-plans","tag-prosecutions","tag-rider","tag-tougher","tag-victim","tag-when","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351049","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=351049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}