Animal control officers, Local Government New Zealand and the local government professional network Taituar\u0101 have helped develop the guidelines, which will be a \u201cpractical resource\u201d councils can use when carrying out dog control functions.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficials are now progressing the next phase of the review and providing advice on scope, timing and stakeholder engagement, with a view to moving quickly in the next term of government,\u201d Watts said.<\/p>\n
New polling of more than 1100 New Zealanders with pets, released to Newstalk ZB, has found 58.8% of respondents believe responsible ownership is the most important aspect of preventing dangerous behaviour in dogs.<\/p>\n
The PD Insurance Pet Trends Survey found that 17.9% identify early socialisation as being most important, while 11.9% consider consistent training to be most crucial.<\/p>\n
The remaining respondents are split between daily exercise and stimulation (3.5%), desexing (3.3%), responsible breeding practices (2.4%) or other things like making dog registrations cheaper, free desexing, teaching dog safety in schools and muzzling aggressive dogs (2.1%).<\/p>\n
Four people have been killed<\/a> in dog attacks in the past four years, reported attacks have almost doubled<\/a> and Auckland\u2019s most populated suburbs have some of the highest rates<\/a> of dog attacks.<\/p>\n Last month, the Herald reported a dog that inflicted \u201cdeep puncture wounds\u201d<\/a> on a 6-year-old child was allowed to remain with its owners and an 83-year-old man said he felt lucky to be alive after being attacked by two dogs in Huapai<\/a>.<\/p>\n The SPCA has been calling for changes<\/a> to the Dog Control Act for more than a decade and Auckland Council has warned further fatal attacks are likely<\/a> if the law isn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n PD Insurance chief operating officer Michelle Le Long said New Zealanders overwhelmingly believed responsible pet ownership was the foundation for preventing dangerous behaviour in dogs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile early socialisation, consistent training and regular exercise all play an important role, the results suggest people recognise that a dog\u2019s behaviour starts with the commitment and decisions of its owner.\u201d<\/p>\n Watts has said the current review may look at council resourcing, penalties and consequences for non-compliant dog owners, desexing obligations and stronger powers for council officers.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are reporting that they are avoiding areas in their neighbourhood because they have been attacked or have reason to believe they will be.<\/p>\n \u201cKiwis should be able to walk, run or take their kids to the park without worrying about being harmed. Dog owners must take responsibility and keep their animals under control.\u201d<\/p>\n Police Minister Mark Mitchell said the police would also accompany dog control officers dealing with \u201cdangerous and high-risk dogs … where police-only powers are required or there are significant safety risks\u201d.<\/p>\n Michael Sergel is Newstalk ZB\u2019s business reporter. He\u2019s been covering business, politics, local government and consumer affairs for over a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Animal control officers, Local Government New Zealand and the local government professional network Taituar\u0101 have helped develop the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3255,9218,3013,12974,24004,10474,7558,7123,4527,9219,5903,19338,266,36996,23801,76,1452,8307,117,111,43,139,7805,69,176056,2249,1533],"class_list":["post-539335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-address","tag-before","tag-but","tag-change","tag-coming","tag-control","tag-councils","tag-current","tag-doesnt","tag-dog","tag-election","tag-expect","tag-government","tag-guidance","tag-guidelines","tag-issue","tag-issues","tag-law","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-no","tag-nz","tag-outdated","tag-soon","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539335","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=539335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}