An Invercargill woman who has had 112 complaints against her dogs says they are not the "vicious, savage beasts" they have been made out to be.
At an Invercargill City Council hearing on Tuesday, dog owner Danuta Boniface appealed a five-year disqualification from dog ownership following three incidents within a 24-month period.
In the past nine years, there had been 112 complaints over the behaviour of her dogs.
The complaints included 68 for barking, 17 for wandering and three for attacks.
Mrs Boniface’s current dogs, Argos, a Rottweiler-cross, and Zara, a German shepherd-cross, were the subject of 71 of the complaints and classified as menacing by deed in 2020.
The classification came after they attacked another dog that was being walked by its owner, although Mrs Boniface disputes the classification and claims it was not a dog attack but Argos jumping up for attention.
Both Zara and Argos were wandering at the time.
Mrs Boniface said she disputed the menacing classification in 2020, but received no response.
Her dogs were not the "vicious, savage beasts that this document reports they are".
Three incidents of Argos wandering in December last year and January and May this year, and Mrs Boniface’s failure to comply with the classification of menacing in a continuous 24 month period, led to her being served with the disqualification from ownership notice.
She claimed the report into her dog ownership was incomplete and a thorough investigation had not occurred.
She also claimed a "vigilante" neighbour, with whom she has had disputes with for several years, was responsible for entering her property and releasing the dogs.
This was known to the police and she was in the process of applying for a restraining order against the neighbour, she said.
"I know I’m not here to argue the point of the [menacing classification].
"[You] can’t extrapolate the [menacing] from the false perception that I’m an irresponsible dog owner, based on an unlawful person’s intrusion on to our property."
When asked by committee chairman Darren Ludlow if the decision to disqualify from ownership had been exercised by council previously, council environmental services manager Gillian Cavanagh said she was not sure how many times, but it had happened before.
It was something only considered in extreme circumstances.
Mrs Boniface’s appeal was taken into consideration and the hearing adjourned for a decision to be reached at a later date.
