Dunedin City Council staff are standing their ground when it comes to tougher restrictions on dog ownership, despite significant opposition to a requirement for dogs to be on a leash on sports fields.
Council staff summarised the more than 380 submissions the council received on the topic ahead of a hearing on the proposed changes being held this week.
By far the most contentious of the proposed changes was a requirement to keep dogs on a leash on council sports grounds. A total of 60% of submitters were opposed and 18% in favour of the proposal.
A further 5% supported banning dogs from sports grounds completely.
However, council staff recommended councillors keep the proposed change, saying it was a response to an increasing number of complaints related to dogs fouling sports grounds.
"The requirement to leash dogs on sports fields is the option that is the least restrictive and ensures that the owner is able to identify when to pick up after their dog,'' staff said in the report.
The report also said that when a dog was off the leash, an owner might not be aware of the need to pick up after it, as a dog could choose to go in an area not in plain sight.
Allowing dogs off the leash on playing fields was also leading to dogs straying to the marked areas, despite it being against the rules.
A proposal to require dogs on tracks and reserves to be leashed and kept 10m away from protected wildlife was supported by 41% of submitters, compared with 30% who supported no changes to dog control rules around wildlife.
Most submitters were in favour of proposals to allow dogs to be exercised off the leash in Peninsula Beach Rd, Port Chalmers and to allow leashed dogs along the Esplanade at St Clair.
When it came to rules about cat ownership, 37% supported regulating the number of cats per property in urban areas, but council staff pointed out that legislation did not allow it pass a bylaw on cats to "generally protect wildlife''.
Macandrew Bay resident and dog-owner David Tordoff, who submitted against the changes, was disappointed staff had not recommended alterations to the proposal as a result of the huge level of opposition.
"This council needs to start listening to the population or alternatively provide an equal amount of space where we can run dogs off lead,'' Mr Tordoff said.
Restrictions on dogs in Dunedin were already too tight and there were not enough places where people could walk their dogs off the lead.
"This is the most dog-unfriendly place I have ever lived.''
Not having enough places to walk dogs off the lead could hurt dogs' health and wellbeing by limiting the amount of exercise they got.
