Councils, Bloody Councils

[sandgrubber]

I keep hearing responses to dog management problems that say: "If only the laws that are already on the books were enforced." 99 of 100 times this means, if only the local council did its job correctly. My experience with councils in Australia hasn't been impressive. They seem to pay too little, have high staff turnover, and the people they recruit often aren't the sharpest tool (I taught at Uni for many years, and our marginal students often looked at council employment . . . the really good students NEVER did). And sadly, the old ranger, who many of us got to know and appreciate for his/her skill in navigating the bureaucracy for the good of dogs, is often retiring out of frustration or exhaustion.

If the council's attention is heavily focussed on questions with multi-million dollar price tags, like land release, and by-in-large the power players are low-scorers in their knowledge about dogs, I think it's unrealistic to expect councils to get serious about enforcement of dog registration laws etc.

If we want real solutions to dog management problems, I think they have to come from within the K9 community.

Interested to know if others have common experience or any sense of how, generally, councils can be brought to take responsibility for dog management problems.

Edited April 11, 2010 by sandgrubber

[Greytmate]

Yes. I had to provide a complete waterproof fully-packaged solution when I was lobbying. It had to be designed so that council staff could implement it, without having to use much thought.

Edited April 11, 2010 by Greytmate

[Staranais]

Interested to know if others have common experience or any sense of how, generally, councils can be brought to take responsibility for dog management problems.

Round here, it seems similar. With every dog attack, there are calls to the government & the local councils to make new laws to protect the public. But the fact is, if you read the story, the owners of the attacking dog are nearly always not within the law anyway - the dog is unregistered, or being walked offleash where it shouldn't be, or roaming, or not microchipped, or unmuzzled where it should be muzzled, etc.

The council could have prevented many of those attacks by policing the regular laws more carefully, and identify high risk owners by the fact they haven't obeyed the laws.

But I guess it's far easier to make new laws and look like you're doing something, than to actually invest the time and money into policing the laws you've already made.

I have no idea how to fix it.

[The Ark]

I think councils need to employ someone to investigate all of the puppy farm ads that appear week after week after week in the local trader newspapers/websites. If council only started enforcing the "puppies/kittens must be microchipped" law for one, these people would have to think twice because it would start costing them money to mass-produce pups. At the moment those breeders have no expenses, especially if they have obtained their breeding dogs through the "free to good home" section of the same papers - so they then advertise their litters, hand over their unchipped, undesexed pups and away they go again.

Surely just following up on some of those ads (maybe even as a "mystery shopper") would bring in enough revenue in fines to pay for the employment of that person, and may nip some of the dog problems in the bud once these guys start having to pay to produce litters. I'd be happy to do that job for them!

[sandgrubber]

We've all got our wish lists . .. many of them hinge on the Council doing a better job of enforcing laws written at the State level. My point is that dogs are usually LOW on the Council's list of priorities (although dog pooh sometimes gets a mention). Improved enforcement of existing laws is going to mean a lot of effort on councils' parts, and put their staff into lots of conflict situations. If people want councils to start enforcing dog laws, they are going to have to start making a lot of noise in local newspapers, show up at council meetings, and generally become active at the local level. Winging about council not enforcing laws on a pedigree dog site won't make a scrap of difference.

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I think councils need to employ someone to investigate all of the puppy farm ads that appear week after week after week in the local trader newspapers/websites. If council only started enforcing the "puppies/kittens must be microchipped" law for one, these people would have to think twice because it would start costing them money to mass-produce pups. At the moment those breeders have no expenses, especially if they have obtained their breeding dogs through the "free to good home" section of the same papers - so they then advertise their litters, hand over their unchipped, undesexed pups and away they go again.

Surely just following up on some of those ads (maybe even as a "mystery shopper") would bring in enough revenue in fines to pay for the employment of that person, and may nip some of the dog problems in the bud once these guys start having to pay to produce litters. I'd be happy to do that job for them!

Edited April 12, 2010 by sandgrubber

[Esky the husky]

I would do that job!

[GeckoTree]

A while ago I was googling around for god knows what, and I came across the expenditure for a victorian council, Dandenong, now on this site are 5 listed people in animal management of which only 1 is an animal management ACO ranger what ever they are called to look after 35,000 population and all complaints etc as well as doing patrols, everyone else was in admin or such.

I think they are well understaffed and underfunded to put on more staff.

[Casster17]

A while ago I was googling around for god knows what, and I came across the expenditure for a victorian council, Dandenong, now on this site are 5 listed people in animal management of which only 1 is an animal management ACO ranger what ever they are called to look after 35,000 population and all complaints etc as well as doing patrols, everyone else was in admin or such.

I think they are well understaffed and underfunded to put on more staff.

I have met the CoGD ranger, not sure if its the same guy,but he was really nice, but worked off his feet,