Barking must stop, owner told

Munta the bull mastiff will have to curtail its barking ... or face being impounded.

That was the outcome of a longstanding neighbourly dispute that came to a head at a Wanganui District Council hearing.

The council statutory management committee sat to hear dog owner Matt O'Sullivan objecting to an "abate dog nuisance" notice served on him as Munta's owner.

His neighbour, Cheryl Colledge, had complained about the noise at the Wanganui East property.

But Mr O'Sullivan claimed that Ms Colledge antagonised the animals on his property, first by holding a weed eater against the fence and then by throwing stones into his property. He believed Ms Colledge "had some kind of vendetta" against Munta and wanted him removed.

Ms Colledge said she did not own a weed eater and the trees between the properties were too tall for her to throw stones over.

Animal control officers received their first complaint about Munta's barking in April 2013. After a second complaint from Ms Colledge, Mr O'Sullivan said he got a bark collar for his dog. The collars work by giving the animal a slight shock when it starts barking.

But complaints kept coming and Ms Colledge gave the committee supporting evidence from others who had stayed at or visited her property next door to the O'Sullivans.

Mr O'Sullivan told the hearing there were two other dogs on his property - a fox terrier the family owned and a labrador belonging to a daughter who had recently moved back home.

Mr O'Sullivan said the barking could have come from his daughter's dog because the bark collar was effective on Munta.

Animal control officer Jason Rees said bark collars were an effective deterrent and only 2 per cent of dogs would bark after being stimulated by the collar.

Jo Meilkeljohn, animal control team leader, told the hearing that since the abatement notice had been served there had been no complaints.

Mr O'Sullivan accepted some of the complaints were justified and said he had done all he could to try to resolve the problem. He had bought another anti-barking device. "We're doing our best to sort it out," he said.

He was told to conform with the abatement notice or risk his dog being impounded.

In another hearing last week, the committee upheld a menacing dog classification placed on a dog owned by Terawhiti Ratana, who also lives in Wanganui East.

His dog is a pit bull terrier but the council said it had reasonable grounds to believe the dog belonged wholly or predominantly to an American pit bull terrier breed.