Garth George: Maybe dog owners should take a test

Bonnie, a tricolour Cavalier King Charles spaniel, has been with us now for a year.

The venerable kingpin of the SPCA in Auckland, Bob Kerridge, opined last week that ethnicity plays a part in the high number of dog attack convictions in South Auckland.

It was a "fair suggestion", he said, that ethnicity did have a bearing on the number of dog attacks, particularly since dog ownership was "not natural" to immigrant groups and Pacific Island people. Some races had no idea what their responsibilities were and "don't care".

The words were barely out of his mouth before they came under fire from Mangere MP S'ua William Sio, although he admitted that new migrants might need more education about animal ownership.

And, of course, our Race Relations Commissioner, Dame Susan Devoy, was quick to put her oar in. She described Mr Kerridge's opinion as "unhelpful" and "incredibly offensive".

This, like so much of what the ostensible guardians of our race relations have to say, is absolute crap and I, for one, have had a gutsful of it. Mr Kerridge, like so many others who are criticised for observing that various social problems arise from racial and ethnic bases (which they do), makes a perfectly valid point.

Because figures released under the Official Information Act show there were 314 dog attack convictions in South Auckland between 2009 and 2014 but in Auckland City there were only 77 convictions in the same period.

As Mr Kerridge observed: "I think the figures speak for themselves." He suggested that what was needed was education and the licensing of owners instead of registering individual dogs.

I wholeheartedly agree. If we were to register dog owners rather that dogs, the problems we have with "man's best friend" would soon disappear.

And I note that the Rotorua SPCA is putting emphasis this year on education and one of the first set of lessons will be for children on how to behave around dogs for their own safety. I hope these sorts of programmes will extend to ownership, too.

The problem isn't just dog attacks. Tens of thousands of dogs in this country are unregistered, underfed, untrained, poorly looked after, and ill-treated in a whole lot of ways. Surely the registration of dog owners, complete with tests similar to that for a driver's licence, would deal with that problem over time.

And I wonder if we realise how much dogs contribute to our society. I can spend hours marvelling at the intelligence of sheep and cattle dogs as they do their thing, and I have tremendous respect for guide dogs, police dogs, drug-sniffing dogs and the like. Nor do I have any complaint about well-bred, well-fed, well-groomed, obedient pets.

The thing about all those animals is that the dog is servant of man and not the other way round. They are cared for, trained, appreciated, maybe even loved, by their owners - but the owner is always in command.

It's the proliferation of ill-bred and ill-mannered mutts and mongrels which make up the majority of the dogs I see about public places that gets up my nose - in more ways than one.

As for our own little mutt, I don't know what we would do without her. Our first wee dog, Archie, died at the age of 8 of heart failure and it was some time before we had recovered enough to replace him.

Bonnie, a tricolour Cavalier King Charles spaniel, has been with us now for a year - a source of great diversion and amusement to us, for had she been born to a pedigree breeder she would have been put down.

She has tan and black spots on her white nose and legs, black streaks where she should be pure white - by no means a good example of the breed. But she would win hands down as the most gorgeous dog in any show.

She is loved and cherished, well-fed and exercised, entertained, brushed and groomed, and visits the vet when required. All of which she repays simply by her eccentric presence in our home.

Along with scores of thousands of other dogs throughout this land, she represents, fortunately, the other side of the canine story.

garth.george@hotmail.com