This week,\u00a0The Post<\/i>\u00a0reported that an Auckland woman whose leashed dog pulled away from her teenage son and attacked a 70-year-old woman was convicted for owning a dog that caused serious injury. She was sentenced to 70 hours of community work and to pay $500 emotional harm reparation to the victim.<\/p>\n
And last year, a\u00a0Northland man was jailed for manslaughter<\/a>\u00a0after his dogs killed Neville Thomson in 2022 – a New Zealand first.<\/p>\n Abel Jaye Wira was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to three years and six months in jail. Wira’s dogs were described as aggressive, uncontrollable and dangerous.<\/p>\n Wira was first charged with being the owner of a dog that caused injury or death, and then several months later the charge was upgraded to manslaughter, the first such case in New Zealand’s history.<\/p>\n “The community cannot underestimate what can arise when dog owners majorly depart from their responsibilities,” Judge Andrew Becroft said during sentencing.<\/p>\n The Kaihu death this week remains under investigation.<\/p>\n Auckland Council is calling for changes to national dog control guidelines.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Nick Monro<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Local governments lack consistency in how they respond to dog attacks and central government needs to take a stronger hand, the SPCA’s Vaughan said.<\/p>\n She said Dog Control Act reform needs to look at measures such as increased desexing and subsidies for those who can’t afford the costs, addressing irresponsible breeding and more public education.<\/p>\n The SPCA also seeks standardised national guidelines for councils on actions to take following a dog bite incident.<\/p>\n Auckland Council has also pressured the government to give councils more power to deal with dog attacks.<\/p>\n It’s calling for measures such as mandatory reporting of dog attacks from hospitals and medical clinics, introducing fencing requirements, allowing councils to set their own desexing policies, and improving councils’ abilities to detain dogs following an attack.<\/p>\n “The changes we are proposing make good common sense and would greatly improve our ability to protect Aucklanders from dog-related harm,” Auckland Council general manager of licensing and compliance Robert Irvine\u00a0said in launching the campaign<\/a>\u00a0last year. “They would not affect the majority of dog owners who we know are responsible.”<\/p>\n Auckland’s council said last July that within the past year it received 16,739 reports of roaming dogs, 1341 reports of dog attacks on people and 1523 reports of attacks on other animals.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
So what’s not working?<\/h3>\n