Several incidents with unleashed dogs, including a child recently being bitten on the face, have led a Kawerau woman to request the council create an on-leash area.
“It would just be nice to have one place where we can walk and know that we’re not going to be bothered by dogs,” Christine Larsen told a Kawerau District Council meeting on Wednesday.
Larsen said she was speaking on behalf of a lot of people in the community when she asked for the policy change.
“I speak to many people, especially older people in our community who don’t want to go walking along the river because they are afraid of dogs and lots of people take sticks,” she said.
“In the seven years I’ve lived in Kawerau I have had 11 incidents, personally, with dogs not on leashes, two of them quite serious, where I’ve been attacked.
“A few weeks ago, my friend’s grandchild was bitten on the face by a dog that wasn’t on a lead along the river.”
Larsen said the roaming female dog had pups that the children were handling. The injury had been serious enough to require stitches, and the dog had been surrendered to dog control.
She said while council’s dog control policy stated that dogs must be under control most people’s dogs were a long way ahead of them when they are walking along the river.
She said dogs had run up to her and barked while the owners just laughed and refused to call their dogs off.
“The dog rushes up to you or up to your children and the owners go ‘oh, it’s alright, the dog won’t hurt you’.
“I won’t take my grandchildren down to the river for a swim anymore because last summer we were swimming and these dogs were just walking in front of their owners by a few hundred yards, and they just rushed up to my grandkids.”
She said another good reason to have dogs on leads was that the owners often didn’t see when their dogs pooped when they were far from them, so they didn’t pick it up.
She suggested the Tarawera River walkway between Waterhouse Street and the Kawerau Golf Club as an area where dogs have to always be on leashes. In particular, the popular swimming spot near Tarawera Park.
“I would say that the river, especially down at the flats, is a very public-use intense place in the summer. There are families with children, and a lot of people bring their dogs down. They say they have control of their dogs, but a lot of people don’t.”
However, one dog owner Local Democracy Reporting spoke to was against having this area marked as on-leash only.
The woman, who did not wish to be named for fear of “becoming a target”, said the riverside area around Tarawera Park was the one area where she could run her large dog.
It was well-known as a dog exercise area, so she didn’t understand why people would go there if they were afraid of dogs, she said.
“There are plenty of other places in Kawerau people can walk if they don’t want to see dogs. Please don’t make this area on-leash only,” she said.
“This area allows the dogs who need it, to have a big run.”
She said there was no problem if the dog was well trained.
“I bring my dogs here all the time. They’re not worrying anyone.”
Larsen pointed out that Tauranga City had a policy that in places of “intense public use”, dogs had to be on leashes, and if they were approaching other people, dog owners had to put their dogs on a leash.
She said it would be nice to also have areas where people could have their dogs off leash or even a fenced off dog exercise area.
Chief executive Morgan Godfery thanked Larson for raising her concerns and for bringing some “concrete ideas for policy changes that might occur”.
He said the council would look into these.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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