The Government needs to approach dog attacks in a similar way to anti-drink-driving and smoking campaigns, a dog behaviour expert says.
A spate of dog attacks in recent days has once again sparked calls for certain breeds to be banned, but DSS Animal Management managing director Barry Gillingwater believes society needs to focus less on the dogs and more on the owners.
"We don't have a dog problem in New Zealand. What we have is a people problem. One of the symptoms of that people problem is dog problems," he said.
Local Government Minister Nick Smith has said he is concerned about the spate of serious attacks and promised yesterday to begin a stalled inquiry into laws governing dangerous dogs.
The investigation had been set to take place last year.
Mr Gillingwater said the law was already tough enough, and banning breeds might be too hard.
"It's very difficult to ban something. You can't go out and shoot every one of them." He advocated a public awareness campaign similar to those used to combat drink-driving and smoking.
"What they did was achieve a change in social habits, and a habitual change for the human animal takes quite a while, but it is possible.
"The next challenge could well be dog owners."
He said owners should be licensed.
"I'm an advocate of actually licensing the owner, like driving a car or owning a firearm. You have to do something like a licence which can be revoked."
Les Dalton, of the Institute of Animal Control Officers, agreed, and was keen to talk to the minister about possible changes.
"But the Dog Control Act at the present time is sufficient, whereby if there's a dog threatening public safety, animal control officers are empowered to enter those properties with police and seize the dogs and the penalties are certainly very high," he told TVNZ yesterday morning.
He said breed-specific legislation did not seem to be working overseas and he was not in favour of that.
"But certainly we have cross-bred dogs here of an undesirable breed, I think."
Mr Gillingwater said the problem was any dog, of any breed, could bite and be aggressive.
"It just depends on the way they've been brought up, and the way their owner socialises and owns them.
"If the owner has high standards and does it properly, any dog will be fine.
"If the owner doesn't care, or doesn't want to socialise their animal, you've got a problem."
The problem was that people who wanted a more aggressive breed of dog were not likely to want to socialise the aggressive nature out of them, he said.
Three children have been attacked by dogs in less than a week. A 9-year-old girl was left with deep cuts to her head and arm after being attacked by her neighbour's American bulldog in Rotorua on Sunday afternoon.
An 18-month-old girl suffered significant injuries to the right side of her face and stomach when the family's pit bull-Staffordshire-cross launched itself at her in Porirua on Saturday.
And a 3-year-old boy remains in a critical condition following an attack by Doberman-Staffordshire-bull-terrier in Ashburton on Wednesday.
