Brian Rudman: Dog database a waste of money

COMMENT

How is a $1 million national database of registered dogs going to stop vicious attacks on human beings? And as for plugging a microchip under the skin of every newly registered dog, the only people that's likely to help are the vets charging $50 a pop to do the deed.

Is the pooch likely to hang around after a savaging to let you dip into your pocket with your bloodied arm to retrieve a barcode reader to get its name?

Meanwhile, while Parliament prepares to pass tougher dog controls this week, Auckland City dog activists are blathering on about their rights being threatened.

Next Sunday they're even planning a protest march up Queen St - I pity the poor lampposts - against what they call the undemocratic way the council is going about deciding which parks in the city their dogs can roam off-leash.

My advice to the doggy lot is to leave well alone. For months now, they've been parading around community boards putting their case for roaming free in this park and that. The process has been exhaustive and, for every suffering board member, exhausting.

The recommendations arising from these meetings have now been submitted to the council's manager for compliance monitoring, who has authority to prepare a city-wide plan.

It's a normal enough procedure, ensuring the final plan has an even spread of off-leash parks across the whole city. The protesters claim this process is "hardly democratic".

Well if it's democracy they want, then how about a referendum of all citizens, not just dog owners, to see if a majority of us want dogs running free in any of our public parks, fouling lawns and frightening humans.

The tougher dogs laws now before Parliament as a result of the attack on little Carolina Anderson at Coxs Bay Reserve, Westmere, last February, include the microchipping of newly registered dogs and the token banning of the importation of four breeds of alleged fighting dogs.

There will also be new powers to muzzle and neuter "menacing" dogs and requirements for better fencing, along with an expectation that dogs be leashed in public places.

In the end though, all the tough laws are useless without adequate enforcement. In the 1980s, the Canadian city of Calgary halved the dog attack rate by strict enforcement of licensing laws. Computerised records of complaints against individual dogs were kept. If a dog was considered to pose a clear threat, it is forced to be muzzled in public.

Even under the present laws, enforcement in Auckland is patchy. In Manukau City it is reported that only 18,700 of the city's 30,000 dogs are even registered. There are no comparative figures for Auckland City, though random checks by compliance officers suggest 95 per cent of dogs are registered.

As for compliance, well it seems many of the democracy-demanding dog-owners consider existing bylaws are for other owners, not them.

In September, 41 $200 instant fines were issued in Auckland City against dogs in public without a lead. In August, 32 were issued, in July, 63.

The good news is that figures are down on March when the random-fine campaign began after the mauling of Carolina. In the week beginning March 7, 42 tickets were issued, in the following week, 21.

But if you want to be depressed, the September total of 41 is much greater than the 11 instant fines issued in September last year and the eight of September 2001. Admittedly, patrols were increased 25 per cent following the Coxs Bay assault, but given the small handful of enforcement officers involved, we must still only be catching the "unlucky" - if that's the right word - few.

A quick walk down any suburban street or across any park would verify that.

The problem is, it's always the other fellow's dog that is the dangerous one. That was what the owners of Carolina's attacker thought. The same with former Olympic boss Bill Garlick, whose dog monstered a two-year old during a wedding reception. The victim needed 71 stitches in his cheek and faces years of corrective surgery.

At Mr Garlick's trial, dog behavourist Paul Hutton appeared as the eight-year-old attacker's character witness. He said Sam, the dog, had a "blemish free history" and there must have been the unusual "coming together" of several circumstances to cause it to act aggressively.

As in all these attacks, the circumstances were not so unusual. The dog just reverted to being the marauding pack animal it was born to be. That's why we need protective laws. When the urban dog owner starts to appreciate the beast within their pet, and acts accordingly, we will all be safer.