Council can’t exercise dogs in its pound
The Far North District Council says it has met most of the SPCA’s demands after it was ordered to make urgent improvements at its run-down Kaitaia dog pound.
However, one order it says it can’t meet, because it doesn’t have enough staff and hiring more would cost too much, is to give each dog half an hour of exercise a day.
A lobby group says that exercising impounded dogs is required by law.
The council’s current dog pound woes began in May last year, when contractor Sue Dennis, who had operated the district’s southern pound at her Okaihau home for eight years, resigned. That left the dilapidated Kaitaia pound as the only facility for the district’s stray and seized dogs.
In October last year the Bay of Islands SPCA issued the council a Section 130 notice, ordering a raft of improvements and demanding a written response within 72 hours. The requirements included better record keeping, visual barriers between cages, and a daily exercise regime.
The council’s district services manager, Dean Myburgh, said there had been a lot of discussion with the SPCA, and the council was preparing a response on its actions so far to comply with the Section 130 notice. The requirement for each dog to be exercised 30 minutes a day, however, had serious implications for animal control staff and could not be met in the short term.
He agreed the Kaitaia pound, which opened in 1989, was no longer fit for purpose.
Last year the council approved funding for new pounds at Kaitaia and on land bought from Top Energy at Ngawha.
The aim was to have both built by June 2019. The new pounds would include exercise facilities and meet all SPCA requirements.
In the meantime the council planned to open a temporary pound on private