Rob Scott: Southland mayor on the council's crackdown on irresponsible dog owners

Southland District Council is clamping down on bad dog owners.

Its infringements issued to those flouting the rules in the past year have risen by nearly 50 percent  - to 150.

Many are attributed to unregistered dogs and biting is a growing issue.

Mayor Rob Scott says staff take dogs from owners as a last resort, but he hopes infringements have taught people a lesson.

"And for those that don't - we've actually got to look at their ability and if they should be owning a dog. Because they're letting the side down for everyone." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Southland District Council is cracking down on dog owners
that who aren't following the rules. This is because the
number of infringement notices issued in the year to June
is up fifty percent on the year before. Most of
these notices are the unregistered dogs, but there's also an
increase in the number of dogs biting people. Rob Scott
is the Mayor of South London with me. Now, hey, Rob,

(00:20):
how are you very well? Thank you? So what you
guys say you're going to crack down, but what are
you actually going to do? What does this mean?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
It's cracking down to focus on the irresponsible owners, so
we're not having to have everyone else pay for the minority.
I think too often in today's will you get the
lowest common denominator kind of affecting everyone and everyone else
paying for it. So we're trying to not back to
the majority of our good dog owners by not having

(00:47):
to increase the dog feeds for them and just targeting
those that aren't playing by the rules.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, but what are you going to take the dogs
off these people?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Oh? That's that's the last resort. But yeah, I mean,
now all of our team on the ground that they're
real people, they're great people, and it's focusing and of
the gaugery. And sead that in that meeting that in
the article that you're referring to, the there's about five
interactions with staff before an infringement has given. So we're
working with people, but you're just targeting those that are

(01:16):
actually breaking the rules rather than making those that are
abiding by them having to pay for it.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Rob, what are your options between So you've you've issued
five notices to them, Now they've got an infringement, and
last result is taking the dogs away? What can you
do between now and then?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, you kind of hope that those infringement notices are
going to actually get paid and and I think what
happens is once you get to that level that hopefully
the lesson has learned and the behavior has changed and
people carry on, and then those that don't, you've actually
got to look at their ability and should they actually
be owning a dog because they are actually letting it down,
metting the side down for everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Okay, now what's going on with the biting? Why are
these dogs biting people?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah? I don't know. And then that's something that ad
And said in the meeting that they're currently looking into.
So yeah, I'm not actually too sure on that one,
and I've actually seen too much of the info behind that,
so I can't sort of go into that one at
the moment too much. Sorry, but yeah, it does seem
a bit strange.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Well, listen, good on you for having a crack at
these guys and go hard. I don't think anybody's gonna
feel sorry for them. They're obviously recidivists.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
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