Online Reporter
THE fatal attack by dogs in Bluff Hill, Harare, where they killed a man on a street on Saturday night, highlights yet again the need to enforce the law that requires all dogs to be kept securely within the owner’s property or under strict control, preferably on a lead, when out in public places.
The law is very clear. Dog owners must have a fence or wall that their dogs cannot jump over and must have a gate that is kept closed, only being opened when the dogs are under the strict control of a human.
The law was passed to allow people to have dogs for companionship and security without endangering or threatening their neighbours or passers-by.
It is a perfectly reasonable law that benefits the dog owners and those in the neighbourhood. People can own dogs and give them a reasonable degree of freedom and everyone else, at least if they are not trying to climb over a wall to steal, can move around safely. It is one of those win-win laws.
It is cruel to keep dogs tied up and the law means that dogs can move around their owners’ property unconfined, and yet not be a danger or a pest. It also adds to the security of the premises because the dog is physically there, rather than wandering around outside and perhaps a long way away.
Some dog owners are responsible and follow the law, or perhaps they just like having their dog safe and secure on the property rather than being a nuisance or attacked by other dogs or other people.
Others simply do not care, and it is common that gates are left open or fences and walls unrepaired. Some fences and walls are too low for the sort of dog they are supposed to contain.
So we have stray dogs ripping up garbage bags set out for collection, or racing out of their gates to threaten and even attack people walking past a house.
It is not uncommon to see small children walking to school being threatened by dogs in the street and simply standing there frozen and terrified until some adult passer-by can help them get past the animal.
In all urban areas, and even in most rural district councils with the past adoption of the model dog licencing by-laws, all dogs are supposed to be licenced with the licence renewed each year and being carried on the dog collar.
The owner is obliged to keep a collar on their dogs.
There used to be inspectors going round checking up on dogs, and for that matter enforcing other by-laws, and the licence fees allowed Harare City Council, for example, to hire inspectors and make a significant grant to the SPCA each year to administer a dog pound where strays could be taken when rounded up.
Owners whose dogs ended up at the SPCA kennels had to pay a fee to get them back, so the society was not out of pocket.
The council also passed by-laws to limit the number of dogs, two on smaller plots and a maximum of four on larger plots, and unneutered females attracted a far higher licence fee, a sort of licence to breed, while the fees for male dogs and spade bitches were far lower, just to cover administrative costs.
All these by-laws are still in place, as are the by-laws about dogs being confined on the owners’ property or being under the immediate and effective control of a person when out of the premises, but are certainly not being enforced.
We doubt that the City Treasurer is even having the dog licences made for sale any more, let alone selling them at his counters in Rowan Martin or the area offices.
So even if a dog owner wants to licence their dog they cannot. The same machine used to stamp out bicycle licences, with that licence money used to maintain cycle tracks, and these are also unavailable.
Dog licences are numbered, so it was possible to backtrack through council records to find the names and addresses of owners in the days of universal licencing of dogs.
Since the whole system was supposed to be self-financing, the dog licences paying for the inspectors who enforced the by-laws and made sure no dogs were wandering around loose and unsupervised, it seems that it could be put back in place without any trouble and without any arguments.
Responsible dog owners would pay very little, just the nominal fees for the licence, since they would have their dog fenced off and would not allow the animal to be a nuisance or a threat to the public.
The irresponsible would be forced to become responsible, first through financial penalties for not licencing their dogs, or the higher fines for leaving gates open, and then if they did not reform having the dogs taken away.
There have been moves in some countries to try and ban some breeds of dog. But all dogs can be trained to be vicious and have an instinct to protect their owners and their owners’ property.
Combining instinct and training can make a dog more dangerous, just as proper training can make a dog easier to control.
Certain dogs have the sort of jaws and head muscles that can be more dangerous, but since so many dogs are cross breeds, trying to ban a particular breed seems impossible as well as ineffective.
The effective measure is the one already on our by-laws, confining dogs to their owners’ premises or keeping them under strict direct control, preferably on a lead, when outside the premises.
What needs to happen is to enforce those laws, and the tragic death of a man in Bluff Hill seems a good moment to stop putting off that enforcement and start setting up sensible and self-financing systems that were created to make enforcement easy.
