Councils keeping dogs owners on a tight leash

Maeve, AKA Mauve, is hardly the sort of dog who needs microchipping. Picture / Martin Sykes

My name is Maeve and I am a middle-aged yellow labrador retriever. I was born in Cambridge, after a carefully planned mating between pedigree parents. My mother is Pepsi, not sure about Dad.

When I was 10 weeks old I was bought by my new pack leader and taken to Kumeu.

I couldn't believe it. I had my own bed and room (which I share with the washing machine), an outside pen and kennel, plus a stream to swim in.

At first I just bonded with my new leader. She named me Maeve, after her dear departed mother, stroked and played with me and began training.

We started after breakfast every day. I learned to "come", "sit", "lie down" and "fetch" on command. The Leader learned I will do anything for food (except walk nicely on the lead when we're out with other dogs).

She was strict. Bad behaviour meant no biscuit, no pat and worse, a growling. The Leader took me to the vet for check-ups and vaccinations and had me speyed so I wouldn't be bothered by suitors and puppies.

She also had me registered.

Every year an envelope arrived. Although the letter within was all about a yellow labrador called "Mauve", we guessed it was for me.

Soon my Leader was granted "selected dog owner status" which meant she kept me on the property and made sure I wore my registration tag.

As a "selected dog owner" she only pays $54 - half the full fee.

But this year the Leader was upset. In the middle of the form a red box declared: "Application will NOT be accepted unless ALL information including owner/s DOB (date of birth) is provided."

The Leader was horrified. "Why do they need my date of birth? If the council can't get the dog's name right, how can I trust them to keep this information confidential?" (The Leader is slightly sensitive about her age.)

But they also wanted to change my colour. From now on I had to be described as "gold". Don't they know that pedigree labradors are always "yellow" and retrievers are "gold".

"And that's not all," said the Leader, now positively fuming. "They're insisting, by law, that from July 1 all new dogs and any that have been classified as dangerous or menacing (before December 2003) must be microchipped."

Personally I think a computer chip in the neck sounds dangerous.

More important, why do the rest of us have to pay for the few dogs, that run amok? Most of them aren't even registered, which means they definitely won't be chipped.

Regulation of dogs is big business and growing. The reason, says Bruce Devonport, Rodney District Council's community wellbeing manager, and media spokesperson, goes back to an amendment to the Dog Control Act after Carolina Anderson was attacked and savaged by two dogs in Cox's Bay Reserve in 2003.

The incident was horrific, the public response predictable, the Government reaction extraordinary. Although it was dealt with firmly by the courts and existing dog control regulations, new, far-reaching, legislation was introduced.

The aim was a national dog database which would include the name, age, breed, colour and distinguishing marks of all dogs, making them easier to track and identify.

The amendment added the provision, specified in statute and therefore over-riding privacy law, that dog owners' dates of birth, be included.

This takes place in a country where violence against children far outstrips violence against or by dogs - and where we are still creeping towards a comprehensive national child database.

As Lesley Max, of the Great Potentials Foundation (formerly Pacific Foundation) says, "We're still deficient in recording information, for example child mortality reviews, because we don't take the collection of information on children as seriously as we should."

Meanwhile, next month new legislation demanding all puppies are microchipped, goes before Parliament. And despite outcries from farmers arguing working dogs should be exempt, and smaller parties threatening to withdraw support, it will probably pass into law.

Moreover, if Parliament's local government and environment select committee has its way, owners who do not notify their council when dogs die will be fined $100.

Devonport considers the new measures reasonable: "I would argue that most laws of the land are based on the 2 per cent of the population that cause problems."

Rodney's dog infringements sit around the 4 per cent mark. Last year to June, the registered dog population of 13,550 collected 596 infringement notices. Of those, 44 owners were prosecuted (compared with eight the year before).

There were 37 attacks on people, 100 on animals and 37 cases of stock worrying: a minuscule 1.2 per cent.

Then there are the biters and fighters. Twenty three dogs are classed "menacing" based on breed (which includes all pitbull-type dogs, japanese tosas, brazilian filas and dogo argentinos), 26 are "menacing" because of their behaviour and 10 classed "dangerous".

Why are they not destroyed? Because, says Devonport, "People are very attached to their dogs and resistant to court orders to have them destroyed. They go to court to fight, then it's all down to the judge."

What will microchipping do to help? Isn't it a scattergun approach to an easily targeted problem?

Concedes Devonport, "The ones who've got difficult dogs are the difficult owners. Their dogs are not trained, not socialised, move around between family and friends.

"The chip will contain a unique series of numbers which means we'll be able to track them back through the database to their owners."

Deep in Rodney territory, on the edge of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, three white dog control wagons and two police cars are on a stake-out.

Up to three dogs live down this steep, overgrown drive. And chained to a kennel, with enough slack to attack visitors, is a bull terrier.

Dog control officer Helen Reynolds is backed by senior controllers Stephen Geange and Ross Dymock and three policemen. They are armed with walkie talkies, search warrants, authority to uplift the dogs, bolt cutters and wire nooses on the end of metre-long sticks.

"Once the dog has this round his neck he can't move," explains Geange who has been bitten five or six times. After 10 minutes he emerges dragging the terrier on the end of his stick. Its tail is clamped between its legs, its muscled neck sports a wide metal-studded collar. Geange keeps the dog a metre from his legs as he cajoles it to a wagon. The second dog, a male white and brown bull terrier, is more aggressive. The third, a white bitch with scars criss-crossing her broad head, almost trots to her wagon.

Then, one of the policemen emerges with a 2m potted marijuana plant.

Two of the dogs are unregistered, none have been de-sexed, the house is littered with faeces.

Devonport won't explain why the dogs were seized. "The issue is the lady is a disqualified owner. She can't own dogs and she can't give them to anyone else on the same property."

Why is she disqualified? "That's a privacy issue," he says. "I'll need to take legal advice."

"What about my privacy as a dog owner?"

That's different.

Twenty minutes later Wayne Knightbridge, Rodney's animal control/bylaws manager, calls to say the woman was disqualified because of a "dog on dog attack".

Meanwhile Maeve is still concerned."What about my colour? Don't they know I can't be gold?"

I haven't the heart to tell her they laughed that one off too.