Auckland council are considering imposing limits on the number of dogs anyone can walk at one time following several incidents involving pack walks supervised by professional dog walkers.
Most recently, Kippa, a family dog, was mauled to death when set upon by a pack of 14 dogs walked by a pro dog walker. In the attack, the walker was pulled to the ground by three of the large dogs attached to her waist and dragged along the floor, clearly having little control over what was happening.
Another, local, professional dog walker says she is concerned by the lack of training and understanding around animal behavior from new dog walking businesses.
“The main thing is, a lot of people don’t have control of their groups of dogs, if I’m honest,” she said.
“So they’re coming into it, they see that there’s money, they see that it looks fun and easy and they think ‘I can take out those dogs, I can do that’ but in reality it’s actually a really difficult job and requires so much learning on your part before you can even start so you can do it safely and carefully.”
“You can’t just chuck a group of 10 dogs together and be like ‘cool let’s go for a walk now, this is going to be great’ because it’s not. It’s going to be horrendous almost right off the bat.”
Auckland Council’s animal management team leader Angie Castro told 1News that currently, a dog walker has the same legal responsibilities as an owner.
“This includes keeping the dogs in their care under control at all times and ensuring the dogs do not attack any person or animal,” she said.
The council’s Dog Management Bylaw 2019 is undergoing a review, and regulations for commercial dog walkers are being considered as part of that process. Any proposed changes will be open to public feedback in early 2025, Castro said.
In the UK many parks in London already have restrictions to the number of dogs walked by one person (whether professionally or not) and restrictions are starting to spread across the UK including North devon where only 6 dogs can be walked at any one time and only three of those can be offlead at once.
What are the restrictions where you are?
Original story was published at www.1news.co.nz
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