Every dog’s day to be seven

Press, 15 October 1982, Page 23

Every dog’s day to be seven

PA Wellington Impounded dogs whose owners cannot be traced will have seven days grace before they are destroyed, under modified dog control legislation debated in Parliament this week.

The law provides at present for 10 days to elapse before a dog can be disposed of. The original Dog Control Bill introduced in Parliament recently proposed it should be four days.

The chairman of the Local Bills Committee, Mr G. W. F. Thompson (National, Horowhenua), said during the reporting back of the bill that the 180 submissions received by the committee showed the extent of interest in it.

Because the bill also dealt with hydatids, it had been renamed the Dog Control and Hydatids Bill, he said.

"The committee has modified the bill to ensure a balance between conflicting interests, taking into account the evidence we heard.”

Mr Thompson said one of :he important changes re-

lated to barking dogs. Originally the bill said a dog control officer could enter premises and give a dog owner a warning if he had “reasonable grounds for believing a nuisance was being created." The amended legislation requires a complaint to be received before any action is taken and the dog control officer must have reasonable grounds to believe a nuisance is being created.

Mr Thompson said 41 submissions had been received regarding the time that should elapse before a dog could be destroyed. As well as extending the time to seven days, it has been decided that a pound must keep a record of impounded dogs and the means of disposal. It had been estimated there were "hundreds of thousands" of unregistered dogs in New Zealand, while the number registered last

year came to 430.009, Mr Thompson said. Labour’s spokesman on local government. Mr E. E. Isbey (Papatoetoe). said the bill was a “fair and sensible” measure considering the different interests involved. It was a bill that probably would not satisfy both sides of the issue, but an attempt had been made to balance all views, he said. The bill was set down for a second reading.