Our Dog Unfriendly Council

What a night! I was out walking Bomber, our big black boy greyhound when two small Jack Russell puppies who were about 20 metres ahead wandered out onto a busy road. There was no human, they weren't on a lead. Traffic swerved and the puppies were unhurt, wisely deciding that the footpath was a safer bet.

Heart in mouth I approached and the two pups who thankfully came over to sniff Bomber. I grabbed their collars and crossed the road along with poor Bomber.

So far so good - at least until one of the puppies started to try and wriggle out of his collar and my grip. Bomber began to get stressed. With two high energy small dogs and one stressed out Greyhound I was wondering what on earth to do next.

All I knew was that these dogs wouldn't last another 5 minutes on this busy road.

Thankfully a passer by kindly stopped and offered to help. An extra set of hands makes handling canine carnage just that so much more easier.

Then I called the council.

Both dogs had collars and one had registration tags. I was hoping the council would be able to track down their owners via the registration tag number and arrange for them to call me to pick up their escape artist dogs.

Note - I wasn't wanting to obtain the owners contact details, I was however willing to give out my mobile number or address details out so I could do the right thing by these poor pups.

No such luck. For some crazy reason the council had to call out a dog handler based on the other side of town. The handler would take 20-40 minutes to get to my location and the council wanted to know if I'd be able to stay put with the dogs until they arrived.

Exasperated I explained that I had two high energy escape artist pups and one increasingly irritated Greyhound plus an bitterly cold southerly was closing in . Making matters even more complex, I only had one dog lead. Waiting that long on a windy and soon to be rainy busy street simply wasn't going to work.

The poor council  receptionist explained that contacting the dogs owners based on the pups registration tag info simply wasn't allowed and that council policy meant that she couldn't access the relevant databases. Policy was policy and rules had to be obeyed, no matter how batshit crazy they were.

Thankfully the  kind person who stopped to help had a handbag whose shoulder strap could clip onto both collars to act as an impromptu lead. We agreed to take the pups back to my place which was dog proofed and wait for the animal control officer to turn up.

Eventually the dog control officer (who was a very decent chap who happened to be stuck in the middle of doing a very difficult job) arrived, picked up the pups and took them to the dog pound.

This sad situation is appalling on too many levels to name.

The councils reluctance to contact the dogs owners and pass my contact details is just bizzare.

Consider what happened instead:

A dog handler had to travel for 20-30 minutes across town and pick the dogs up. How much time and money wasted with that exercise is bound to add up when multiplied across the sheer number of call outs the council must get.

That the dogs were then deposited in the pound for their owners to hopefully pick up later must also be deeply distressing for the dogs and expensive for their owners.

What really galls me is that the simple common sense option of putting the dogs owners in direct contact with me so they could pick up their dog at zero cost to the council wasn't allowed.

Now our already over crowded dog pound has two more dogs to deal with and a sizeable amount of time and money that needn't have been spent in the first place was wasted.

Isn't it awesome to see ratepayer funds put to such good use?

So what learnings are there?

1) Get engraved name tags for your dogs - this way good Samaritans can call you directly instead of getting wrapped up in the bureaucratic nonsense that is the Wellington City Council.

2) Get your dogs microchipped - that way even if they slip their collars dogs can still be reunited with you

3) Triple check your section for dog proofing. These wee jack Russells were total escape artists, but sealing off that hole in the fence that may have seemed too small or too hidden could have prevented this situation from happening in the first place.

4) Don't blame the owners - accidents can happen and even the most conscientious owners can own sneaky dogs.

5) Do get involved. If you see strays, stop and help. Just don't expect the council to be all that flexible. Your actions can mean the difference between life and death for a dog.

What is wrong with people?

What an interesting day. My wife as out walking Lottie and Bomber this morning and was accosted by a man about our dogs daring to pee on the street in front of his house.

Thankfully my wife can handle herself. The guy ranted at her about how disgusting he thought it was and asked how we'd feel if he peed outside our gate.

He'd obviously never been out in the wee hours of a Friday night and seen what drunks do when they've had too many pints and their bladders are bulging.

My wife dished up an XXL serving of sarcasm and said "well I'm deeply sorry", turned on her heels and walked off - hopefully leaving this man feeling like the complete and utter tool that he obviously was.

Last year when we first got Lottie, someone also left a typed note in our letterbox saying "please clean up after your dog"

This was particularly galling as we like to think of ourselves as responsible dog owners and we carry biodegradable plastic bags designed specifically for picking up after our dogs. Bizarrely this seemed to be neither here nor there to our ill informed anonymous note writer.

The funny thing is I do sympathise with the note writer to some degree. There is nothing quite as gross as stepping in some particularly pungent dogshit. Cleaning up after ones dog isn't terribly onerous nor is it particularly difficult to do. It is something we've done from day 1 and will continue to do.

Dogs peeing however is something we have little control over.

What I take issue with is cowardly nature of both people. If I'd been walking the dogs with my wife would this gentleman have approached us? I doubt it. As for dropping anonymous notes in our letterbox, that is simply beneath contempt.

So lets ask the question - if dogs peeing (Lottie tends to discretely pee in the gutter) on the street was banned, where would dogs go to spend the canine equivalent of a penny?

Would we need to fit them with daipers? Perhaps the council could set up public dog urinals and offer dogs special training sessions on how to use them??

Clearly this is an issue that will polarise people and there is no single simple answer. As a dog owner I get that. What I don't get is the completely gutless and tactless way that some people have chosen to communicate the issue.

New Zealand has a reputation as being a clean and green place that is safe and easy to live in. Our attitudes towards animals however is terrible. The more I know about people, the more I like my dogs.