Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

A writer to the letters pages reminds us it's dog registration time again and responsible owners of dogs will again be wondering what they get for their money.

Well I can tell you. Nothing.

Because your money is spent almost entirely on bad dog owners.

It's like paying insurance premiums for your neighbour's house. You get nothing if your house falls down, just as you get no slack from the bail-out fee if your dog is naughty.
Good dog owners are paying the council to attempt to control other people's dogs. Bad dog owners. And sometimes, bad dogs. But mostly, it's the owners with the problem.

I don't have an issue with costs being recovered from owners of dogs that wander, run rampant, bite or otherwise need attention from dog control officers. And let me add: those rangers do a fantastic job, often dealing with mongrel owners. But it's time for a change.

Imagine this

Either that, or we apply the same principles to every facet of city life:

How would beach swimmers like it, if they were required to be taxed? Register all swimmers, so lifeguards can be paid to rescue the ones that get into trouble. Whether or not you're a good swimmer, regardless of whether you go out beyond your depth or ability – even if you wear a lifejacket, waterwings and a tyre tube around your belly – you still have to be registered and pay. And all the fees will be spent on rescuing the irresponsible swimmers, drunks in jeans; and those getting out of their depth!

There'd be uproar, right?

Even ACC manage a sliding scale of charges, so higher risk customers attract a higher premium.

Behaviour bond

I could understand if dogs were levied a one-off, first-time fee, to cover costs of punching some details into a computer and issuing a tag.

Then each consecutive year, unless anything changes and your dog stays out of trouble, the fee should be next to nothing.

I'd pay a fee first up and say $5 a year after that, just to stay on the records. But $78 each and every year, even though my mutt isn't creating any cost to the council? That is daylight robbery.

Maybe the first-up fee should be treated as a good behaviour bond, and then subsequent yearly fees are deducted if the pooch stays out of trouble.

Time for review

Here at RR we agree with Michael's letter, on page 41. It's time the dog registration system was reviewed. We live in a user-pays society; and in the case of dog registration, payers aren't getting anything to use from their fees. Just more regulation, more restrictions and forced subsidy of haphazard attempts to control the irresponsible.

'No swimming for you, pal. Your registration's expired. Go sit.”

Other councils give a lot more back to decent dog owners, than Tauranga or Western Bay of Plenty. Thames Coromandel, for instance, actually seem to care, with designated dog zones and plastic bag dispensers at popular dog walking areas.

Not so, the local councils. They just take your money, year after year, whether you've a clean record or not.

So why are dogs singled out?

My wife reckons it goes back to the days of hydatids control, when dogs had to be registered to keep track of the dosing. Well that's long gone, thank goodness.
Whatever the reason, dog registration is archaic and completely unfair.

No other animals in society are required to be registered. Horses, cats, politicians, alpacas…you name it, they still dump where and when they like, but none are subjected to the apartheid treatment dogs and their owners are inflicted with.

Cats, as Gareth Morgan will tell you, kill native birds on an epic scale. This surely is more devastating to our wildlife than anything dogs can damage. Even the protection of kiwi, of which dogs are blamed for a large amount of carnage, isn't helped by registration.

Noxious vermin

Vermin such as possums, rats, ferrets, rabbits and all sorts of noxious pests can be kept as domestic pets, but there's no requirement to register them. These animals in the wild are considered pests to be exterminated!

Yet there's no control or record of their ownership. If anything has to be registered and controlled, it should be the mustelids and goddam Aussie invaders trashing our bush and native wildlife.

This is absurd.

It is high time the registration system is overhauled, and good dog owners are let off the hook and councils squeeze revenue from a more appropriate source.

Tell us your ideas.

brian@thesun.co.nz

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