Paparua dog owners risk court actions

Press, 29 July 1987, Page 9

Paparua dog owners risk court actions

The owner of any dog not registered with the Paparua County Council will face legal proceedings frpm August 7. Councillors attending a finance committee meeting last evening voted to charge owners who had not registered their dogs. However, Cr J. M. E. Calvert suggested a userpays system of registering dogs and controlling hydatids should be adopted by the council. "I don’t see how we can justify the $39 plus that these people must pay to have their dog dosed and registered. What are our staff doing in the six months between the doses anyway?” she asked. Cr Calvert suggested the number of hydatids officers employed by the council should be cut from three to one.

Cr J. S. M. Kyle said the problem in setting an over-all fee lay in the fact that urban dogs were sub-

sidising rural dogs. “We recognised that if we set up a regime in the system where farm dogs were kept away from farm killing and the problem of hydatids they could then be treated on the same six-month basis as urban dogs. This would reduce the cost but there would be a lot involved in it,” he said. Staff costs were crippling the system but there was no easy solution, he said. “We can either walk away from the hydatids problem and hope it won’t reappear or we cut down visits by the officers and hope the hydatids problem will not increase.

“There may well be farmers who can not and will not comply with the system and they may end up having to pay for those extra visits.” Cr Calvert said she would “wait with bated breath” for a reduction in the fee.