Council starts purge of unregistered dogs

KCDC’s animal controllers are starting to seize and impound unregistered dogs this week.

Kāpiti Coast District Council’s Regulatory Manager, Ken Smith, says all dog owners with unregistered dogs will be receiving  infringement notices and fines for failing to register their dogs within the time allowed.

The infringement fines are for $300 per dog.  So someone owning two unregistered dogs will pay $600 worth of fines.

Dog owners had until August 5 to settle their accounts for dog registration.  After this date, penalty fees were added.

Animal Control Officers have visited each property where an unregistered dog was listed during the past seven weeks.  Some of these dogs had died or had been moved out of Kapiti.

Where unregistered dogs were still at these addresses, notices were left for the owners telling them to pay the registration fees and penalties by September 30 2011 — or they would be fined for failing to register.

Animal Control expect to issue infringement notices by the end of the week.

“We have yet to finalise the count of unregistered dogs but, in a district where there are more than 6500 dogs, we believe there are only a little more than 200 which remain unregistered at this stage,” says Mr Smith.

“That’s a good response from the dog owning public and a testament to the good work of the Animal Control Team.”

Dog owners contacting council who want their infringement fine waived will have to put their request in writing addressed to Animal Control.  Waiver applications will be considered by a Animal Control and compliance officers.

And the Council says some dogs may be ‘surrendered’ by owners and then considered as candidates for ‘re-homing.’