Page 4049 - Week 11 - Thursday, 21 September 2017
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animal-to-stranger interactions. From these millions of interactions for the years 2016 and 2017 the Domestic Animal Services received only 389 reports of incidents involving a dog.
The majority of these incidents do not involve attack on humans, rather most are incidents of dogs harassing or attacking other dogs or animals. In fact, in some reported cases, dogs have attacked their owners when the owner was trying to extricate them from an incident with another dog or animal. When reviewed, a common theme running through many attack incidents is a dog being off leash or unable to be controlled by its owner or carer.
Raising the community’s awareness of their responsibilities as pet owners is a key action under the strategy. This is an important and possibly tough message for some dog owners. I recognise that many people who own dogs believe their dog is able to walk off leash. While this may be the case for their own dog, other dogs on a leash may not have the same instinctive response. Large and small dogs may react differently to dogs off leash coming up to them.
Cyclists and pedestrians may come across off-leash dogs on shared paths, also causing incidents. I have been very close to this myself on more than one accession walking or cycling around my local park and lake, Yerrabi Ponds. This is the reason we have on and off-leash areas and designated dog parks, where the government has worked with the community to designate special areas where it is safest for the community to be.
To further deliver on this action the government has launched its paws for thought campaign which promotes responsible pet ownership and aims to drive cultural change within the community. Paws for thought addresses key behaviours and requirements of pet owners, including registration, microchipping, desexing and appropriate animal control.
The campaign includes an ongoing program of information stalls held at shopping centres and schools across the ACT and is largely staffed by Domestic Animal Services volunteers and is being delivered within existing resources. Stalls began in July, with information already presented at Marist College, the Dickson shops and Cooleman Court, Weston. Social media information has also been developed and the paws for thought content went live in late July and is also available on the Access Canberra website.
To bolster the social media content, a series of videos has been created to support the paws for thought program, including videos which raise the importance of registering, desexing and microchipping dogs. Other videos promote secure gates and fencing so that animals cannot escape, and appropriate dog control whilst in public, including appropriate restraints and their use. Both issues have been at the heart of several high profile attacks recently and educating dog owners to be responsible on all accounts will ensure that the campaign is successful and our community remains safe.
We have also updated the TCCS website to provide additional information regarding dog attacks, including new fact sheets providing the community with a one-stop shop for everything they might need to know in the unlikely event of an incident.
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