“Love my Vote – Love My Dogs”

Dogs are the forbidden issue in the pending New Zealand local government elections. None of the candidates want to introduce, let alone discuss, the increasingly raw topic of the nation’s dogs and their owners.

There are two reasons behind the electoral blind eye to an increasing health problem which takes two forms.

These are the growing number of attacks by dogs on humans, especially children, in addition to the perennial fouling problem.

Local government candidates avoid the issue in the knowledge that dog owners are single-issue electors in that any measure against their pets are considered also as a personal and repressive measure against the owner.

Local government officials if cornered on the dog problem tend to sidestep it by claiming that the problem is one for Parliament to regulate.

This is not true. Local and municipal regional governments enjoy considerable latitude in coping with the nation’s dog problem, especially in regard to the now rampant dangerous dog one.

Local authorities can ban dogs from whole areas, such as beaches and retail districts. They can regulate areas in which dogs even if they are allowed have to be on leashes..

They can also administer regulations and penalties in the matter of dog-fouling.

New Zealand local authorities have enjoyed some success in handling an earlier dog problem, the one before the current and unavoidable dangerous dog one.

This was the barking problem which local authorities have taken seriously in the form of employing and empowering noise control officers.

Local authorities have also stepped up their dog ranger activity especially in terms of getting tough with the adoring owners of dangerous dogs.  But in keeping silent on the problem candidates demonstrate their belief that dog owners, the ones that vote, are single issue voters who in effect are saying to them...............

“Love my vote/ love my dogs.”

From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk - Friday 23 September 2016