Kerre Woodham: Mongrels and their mutts

Photo / Kelvin Teixeira

Dog attacks are in the news again - in fact, there's not really a week that goes by when there isn't news of another dog savaging a child or an innocent passerby.

These dirty mongrels - and by that I mean the owners of these vicious, untrained mutts - are costing us a pretty penny.

Between 2005 and 2010, ACC paid out more than $10 million to about 50,000 dog bite victims. And surprise, surprise, it's pit bulls who are leading the attacks. A two-year study of reported attacks carried out across the greater Waikato and Bay of Plenty threw up interesting stats.

Pit bulls were responsible for the most attacks, despite making up a tiny percentage of the dog population; Labradors were next, but their inclusion could in part be because they are our favourite breed, and bull terriers came in third.

In 75 per cent of cases, the dogs were known to the victim - so all that justification about dogs loving the family kids can be seen for the nonsense it is.

The most interesting statistic, though, and what will make it so hard for any government or council to impose restrictions and penalties on dodgy owners, is that unregistered dogs were nine times more likely to attack. We know there is a vicious, stupid and lawless group of individuals within our community and if we can't protect their kids from them, it's even tougher to do anything about their dogs.