A recent report tells us that Wellington wants to get tough on dog owners:

Councillors at today’s Strategy and Policy meeting agreed to consult Wellington City residents on a number of changes to the Council’s Dog Policy and Animals Bylaw.

The proposed changes will go out for public consultation on 26 June [2009] and include:

• a requirement for dog owners to carry a dog poo receptacle and dispose of their dog’s poo.

The news media put a figure on what will happen to dog owners who can’t produce a poop bag:

Owners caught walking their pooch in Wellington without a way to dispose of doggy poo will face a $300 fine.

I have several problems with this:

1. Not carrying a poop bag is circumstantial evidence of nothing. I have 2 dogs myself and generally carry 2 bags and a spare. Sometimes I forget the spare. I can easily see an occasion where I’ve used both bags to pick up after my dogs and have dropped the filled bags in a rubbish bin, meaning I’m no longer carrying a bag. That doesn’t mean I’m a wrongdoer who doesn’t pick up after her dogs.
2. There are people who just don’t pick up after their dogs, ever. I believe some of them will carry a bag, but just not bother to use it.
3. There is actually already a law about litter that provides for a maximum fine of $5,000¹. The Council could apply that fine to people caught not picking up their dog’s poop.
4. Wellington actually has a bigger problem of litter and waste.

Every day when I take the dogs for a walk there is litter and waste all along our path, and yes, that includes dog poop. But the dog poop is only a small proportion of all the mess.

Some of the litter is quite dangerous. I wear good walking shoes, but the dogs feet are exposed. We often find ourselves walking over pieces of broken glass (I can’t see and avoid every bit of broken glass along our path).

Rubbish beside the road.

My little dogs are close to the ground. On every walk they snaffle and eat something — usually I don’t even know what. Last week Oshi ate silver foil, and a bit of tissue, and some bread that I knew about.

The litter in Wellington is unsightly at best and unhygienic and dangerous at worst — to both people and dogs.

Clearly we Wellingtonians (and perhaps visitors) at large are careless about our rubbish and how we dispose of it. Rather than arbitrarily fining dog owners for some imagined transgression I’d like to see the Council get tough on those people who are actually creating the problem.

• Identify the people creating litter, and apply the existing laws.
• Create a ‘Beautiful, clean Wellington’ campaign to raise awareness and pride.
• Add signs in buses and public places encouraging people to keep Wellington clean and tidy.
• Increase the availability of rubbish bins in places where people walk dogs, such as the official off-leash areas.
• Provide free poop bags with every dog registration. Send them out with Rates notices. Make it easy to buy the Council’s poop bags online.

There are just a few ideas I came up with in a couple of moments’ thought. I’m sure there are more and better ideas to be found.

Have your say in the Comments below.

¹ Litter Act 1979 No 41 (as at 30 September 2008), Public Act – New Zealand Legislation:

Offences and penalties

15 Deposit of litter in public place or on private land

• (1) Every person commits an offence and is liable, in the case of an individual, to a fine not exceeding $5,000 … who deposits any litter or, having deposited any litter, leaves it
  • (a) in or on a public place; or
  • (b) in or on private land without the consent of its occupier.
• (2) …Where … the litter deposited is of such a nature as is likely to endanger any person or to cause physical injury or disease or infection to any person coming into contact with it (being in particular any bottle whether broken or not, glass, article containing glass, sharp or jagged material, or any substance of a toxic or poisonous nature) that person is liable
  • (a) In the case of an individual, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 1 month, or to a fine not exceeding $7,500, or to both;