Can you steal your own dog?

Press, 15 December 1979, Page 2

Can you steal your own dog?

’A New Plymouth You can’t steal your own dog — or can you? A Taranaki County-New Plymouth City joint hydatids control committee was told yesterday by a dog ranger, Mr L. C. Ward, how he dealt with a man who, he said, “stole” his dog back from the

pound in New Plymouth last month. Mr Ward said he knew the owner, and he visited his property the next morning. “There was nobody home, but the dog I had had in the pound was looking at me through the window,” he told the committee.

Mr Ward said the police had told him they could not prosecute for theft as someone “could not steal his own property.” He asked the to charge the man with breaking and entering, as the lock of the pound had been damaged. Pound fees totalled $2l.

The police visited the dog “owner" three weeks later, but were told by the man that he did not own a dog of that description. Mr Ward said it seemed that nothing more could be done unless the dog owner actually admitted committing the offence.