Doogle News

Dog laws didn't stop mauling
Monday, 23 April 2007
Virginia Ohlson, a 56-year-old mother and St John Ambulance volunteer, was mauled by a pitbull and a staffordshire terrier cross while walking to her local dairy in Murupara early on Saturday morning.

Neither the dogs was registered and were roaming free on a property that was not fully fenced. The dogs have been put down, and police are considering whether to lay manslaughter charges against the owner.

Councillor Francis Maher, who was critical of aspects of changes to last year's Dog Control Act, said the new dog control laws did not prevent people owning dangerous dogs.

In the past year dozens of people have been hospitalised after dog attacks, despite law changes, which were sparked by a horrific dog attack on Auckland girl Carolina Anderson.

Public outrage at the attack sparked new legislation, including a requirement for councils to identify and classify menacing dogs and the microchipping bill introduced last year that required all newly registered dogs, except farm dogs, to be implanted with an identity microchip.

But Cr Maher said the new laws still did not do enough to control potentially dangerous dogs. "I can't see any justification for owning these dogs at all. It's like living with a loaded gun.

"The fact that they weren't registered means that no existing laws would have been able to deal with them."

Cr Maher said it was not unreasonable that the owner of the dogs face manslaughter charges. The same thing applied to people causing road smashes through risky behaviour, he said. "It's the same gross negligence. Allowing them to roam caused the death of an innocent person."

Cr Maher said there were not a lot of unregistered dogs in Marlborough and it was rare to see dogs roaming around the streets. "I think it's important we all play by the rules and if people are aware of unregistered dogs they should contact the council or Maataa Waka (the company contracted for animal control). It's in the whole community's interest."

Maataa Waka senior animal control officer Johnny Joseph said the Murupara attack was a shocking situation.

He said the majority of dog owners abided by the rules, but five percent tended to push the limits.

Marlborough did not have a prominent problem with unregistered dogs, but he said checks last year came across 25 unregistered dogs, which was still too many.

As at June 2006, there were 9855 registered dogs in Marlborough, owned by 5500 owners. Over the previous year total dog related complaints decreased from 627 to 493.

The number of reported attacks decreased over the same period, from 90 to 41 and roaming complaints were also down from 141 to 83.

There are four dogs registered as dangerous in Marlborough, and are subject to muzzling and microchip rules.

Last year debate raged over microchipping of dogs.

Marlborough Kennel Association president Lavina Diamanti said the attack was tragic, but microchipping was for identification, and identifying a dog did not stop it attacking anyone.

"We have an act which licences the animal, not the owner. I certainly think that should be open for debate," she said.

"Like anything there are fors and against. We need to be careful that we are not over-legislating everything. We have firearms laws, but does that prevent incidents with firearms?"

People also needed to be careful when identifying dog breeds. The media had quickly latched on to the staffordshire pit bull type of breed, but in many cases it was difficult to tell what sort of breeds went into a particular dog, she said.

The association promoted responsible dog ownership, making sure the dogs were on secured properties and were properly trained.

Source: www.stuff.co.nz

« Back to News