Invercargill City Council animal services officers have begun pounding the pavements searching for unregistered dogs.
Armed with maps showing the addresses of all registered dogs, they have begun walking every street in the city, including Otatara and Bluff, to uncover dogs living at properties which do not show up on the council system.
Then comes the knock on the door, or, if no-one is home, a card in the letterbox.
"We've got to find these unregistered dogs and get them registered,'' council environmental health manager John Youngson said.
The street-walking campaign is being augmented by regular visits to the city's only dog park, where animal services officers are offering owners whose dogs are not registered a discount on registration and microchipping costs, "no questions asked'', he said, as well as free microchipping for registered dogs.
The standard registration fee this year is $100 and a microchip implant is usually $45.
The first visit to the dog park was a "great success'', with 88 dogs registered for the first time and about 250 dogs microchipped.
Almost 9000 city dogs are registered at present, with another 700-900 - maybe more - believed to be unregistered, Mr Youngson said.
Over the summer of 2014-15, students were hired to walk large parts of the city looking for dogs and the estimate was calculated using the results of that survey, he said.
Asked why so many owners were not registering their dogs, Mr Youngson said they had never been challenged before.
"There has been no enforcement in the past and no education either. That is changing now.''
The street-walking campaign began last month and about four or five dogs uncovered each time staff went out, he said.
