$43k fund to help cut dangerous dogs

The Invercargill City Council is devising a plan to castrate some dangerous dogs before they can breed further.

The council has received $43,000 in government funding from a national pool of $850,000, which would allow them to neuter more than 100 dogs for free.

Council manager of environmental health and compliance John Youngson said his impression was the Government wanted to ‘‘breed the dogs out of existence’’.

Last year, Associate Local Government Minister Louise Upston announced a new national plan to reduce the risk of dog attacks.

At the council’s regulatory services committee meeting this week, Youngson said the proposal meant more work for the council’s animal services.

The key change for the council was owners of high-risk dogs would need to have a high-risk dog owner licence. The owners would go through a series of tests to make sure they understood their responsibilities, he said.

‘‘There will be a check on your property to make sure that it all complies, and you also have to show that you can keep your dog under control.’’

If the shelters were re-homing dogs, they could be given only to a holder of the dangerous dog licence, Youngson said. ‘‘That’s going to be a bit of an issue for us.’’

The Government issued $850,000 up front for local authorities to implement neutering programmes. The city council put in its submission early, Youngson said.

‘‘We were very successful in getting $43,000, and that should offer all our dogs that are on our records free neutering or desexing at a vet of their choice.’’

Free microchipping and desexing would be available for eligible dogs. ‘‘The idea is we want to get these dogs under our control.’’

Cr Lloyd Esler said he was surprised the council would attempt to re-home a dangerous dog. ‘‘I thought we would want to try and get them out of the system.’’

Cr Karen Arnold said $43,000 appeared to be a large percentage of the pool available. ‘‘Do we have quite a high dangerous menacing dog population here compared to other regions?’’

Youngson said there were ‘‘about 114 dogs that probably need to be neutered’’.

Cr Lindsay Thomas said his concern was, what would happen when the Government money ran out.

Youngson said it was a window of opportunity to get high-risk dogs completely legalised for free.

In regard to the high-risk dog owner licence, he said the council’s bylaw was already such that they were ‘‘halfway there’’.

Until now, the council had simply not enforced the bylaw ‘‘as rigorously as we should’’, Youngson said.

He said many would not want their dogs desexed, and may ‘‘go underground’’.