NZ’s love affair with best friend

They say a dog is man’s best friend and that certainly seems to be the case in New Zealand.

Dog ownership has soared over the past five years, outstripping the growth in people in all the main cities apart from Auckland.

The country is home to more than 560,500 registered dogs – enough for about one in nine to be a proud owner.

That’s a pooch for roughly every third household.

But where can lay claim to the title of being New Zealand’s canine capital?

A number of cities can put a paw in the air to take the accolade. The title, based on dogs per person, belongs to Dunedin, where the 17,465 dogs registered by the end of June last year against a population of 130,700 means there is one mutt for roughly every seven people, according to council and government figures.

Hamilton will also be howling its case as the country’s dogfriendliest city. Registered numbers there rocketed from 6581 in 2012/13 to 11,783 in 2017/18 – a 79 per cent rise.

And while Aucklanders may be wagging their tails over the fact they have more dogs than anywhere else, they are all bark and no bite – their 103,000 registered dogs is a rise of less than 2 per cent on five years ago, the lowest of any major centre.

But while pet numbers in cities are rising, most dogs find their homes in small towns and rural areas.

Kiwis’ love affair with their four-legged friends was obvious in Christchurch over Christmas as hundreds of owners flocked to Hagley Park and the city’s dedicated dog parks.

Christchurch’s dog population has risen markedly in recent years, from 34,072 registered pets in 2013 to 38,527 last year.

That 13 per cent increase is higher than the 9 per cent change in residents over the same period, up from 356,700 in 2013 to 388,500 in 2018.

The trend is mirrored in other big cities. Dunedin, Tauranga, Hamilton and Wellington have all seen dog numbers grow faster than the human population since 2013. But the pattern is not the same across New Zealand as a whole – the 560,511 dogs registered in 2018 is up just 4.57 per cent on the 535,987 of 2013, against a 10 per cent population rise in the same period, from 4.44 million to 4.88 million.

While Auckland is home to the most registered dogs, it also has the naughtiest owners.

In the 12 months to June, authorities issued 5817 infringement notices – equating to one in 20 dogs – for everything from failing to take dog obedience courses to not keeping pets under control.

Owners in Wellington were the best behaved, with infringements issued for less than 1 per cent of dogs.

Pets in the dog house most often appear to live in Tauranga, where there were 5228 complaints in the same period against a dog population of 12,700.

Auckland has the naughtiest owners.