Jacoby Poulain: Calls for look into animal control

Jacoby Poulain is a Hastings District councillor and a board member of the Hawke's Bay District Health Board and EIT.

On Monday evening my fellow Flaxmere councillor and I co-chaired a public meeting in Flaxmere.

It was attended by numerous members of the public and spokespeople taking the opportunity to address the Hastings mayor on dog control and policy issues within the Hastings district.

Though not strictly within the intended scope of the meeting, the issue was given significant time to be addressed.

The letter of complaint and petition in essence challenged the Hastings District Council to look at its procedures for animal-control officers and the dog-pound. Mayor Lawrence Yule responded that he would seek council support to conduct an independent review of the situation.

For background to this, many will be aware the council's dog-control programme was initiated years ago as a response to growing concern over attacks.

The programme began with the council's community safety manager investigating what tools and mechanisms the council could use within the law. A strategy was devised, political support gathered and implementation of the programme moved on to.

To carry out the work, two additional animal-control officers were employed. The question then was, who should pay for this? Do the costs go to the ratepayers or do you put it on registration where you are hitting responsible owners who register their dogs, or some other avenue? The council decided to assign the cost to the irresponsible owners through higher impound fees.

The increase in pound fees meant income from that source rose enough so that irresponsible owners funded the whole scheme.

The project began by cracking down on dogs which had been registered but were no longer, because evidence supports that there's a high correlation between people who do not register their dogs and dangerous or menacing canines.

Animal-control officers then began to comb the streets, going from house to house to investigate whether an unregistered dog was on the property. The pound was filled in half a street. All dogs not complying with requirements and considered dangerous or menacing were impounded and not released until pound fees were paid.

Before the control programme, in 2007, the council had 201 reported dog attacks, 63 on people. In 2012, two years after employing two extra animal-control officers, total attacks had fallen to 63, just 17 of which were on people. In that time, attacks on other animals more than halved.

The success this programme has had on making our streets safer should not be underestimated. I remember seeing newspaper articles of toddlers' faces ripped apart by roaming, aggressive dogs. I wish it upon no parent or child to have to deal with those repercussions when it's possible to decrease the likelihood of such encounters, as the council has been able to do here.

Also important to acknowledge, however, are the concerns members of our community have regarding dog control and pound practices. Good dog owners should not be caught up unjustifiably.

A number of reports and a petition have been brought to the attention of the mayor, seeking the matter be looked into. It is important these matters are investigated.

An independent view on council operations will help the council seek the correct balance between community safety and the operation of dog-control activities. The matter will be brought before the council in the near future for deliberation.