Kerre Woodham: Short-sighted act of taking old guide dog

Thank heavens for the Auckland City dog control officers! We can all sleep safe in our beds at night knowing they're out there protecting us from ravening beasts like Winnie, the half-blind former guide dog who was seized by the officers on Thursday night.

This is a dreadful story of bureaucracy going mad. Winnie was Brian's guide dog for four-and-a-half years before her own sight began to fail. Winnie's family didn't want to give her away after her years of faithful service, so Matt, Brian's son, offered to give Winnie the best possible retirement.

So every day she suns herself in her securely fenced Onehunga villa, waiting for her people to get home from work. But on Thursday night, when Matt and his wife came home, Winnie was gone. She'd been taken away to the pound because she hadn't had her registration renewed. Matt rang Animal Control.

She was a former guide dog. Renewal is free. Animal Control had his phone number, his mobile number and his address. Couldn't they have rung him before they snatched Winnie?

Matt says she would have happily gone with the officers - she would have loved the company - but he was beside himself at the thought of his beautiful retriever spending the night on death row. She would be frightened, disorientated and lonely. Could he come and pick her up straight away, pay any sort of fine and sort it out later?

No, he was told, the pound closed at 5pm, and he'd have to pick her up after work on Friday. Matt was furious as well he might be.

That's when he rang me, and that's when I put the Herald on Sunday on to getting to the bottom of this. I find it hard to believe that Animal Control are so lacking in initiative that they would seize a half-blind retriever who's given the best years of her canine life to serving the community.

I accept it's a tough job, but sometimes the perception is that these officers pick on the easy targets to fulfil their quotas rather than tackling the much tougher problem of dangerous dogs.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY