This is a tad late but attending a client function last night conspired to keep me out rather than in! Anyway yes New Zealand has gone down the path of registering owners as is the case for motor vehicles. This of course works well for the 99.99% of honest people who have dogs. However the challenge is securing compliance with the artful dodgers and gangs who keep dogs for dog-fighting and statements about their manhood, or compensation for elements of same that they don't have. Microchipping of dogs is another move which has been introduced here although it smacks of overkill and politicians motivated by jumping on a wave of public and media outcry about random dog attacks. It's also big brother in action and I believe it has more to do with filling the treasury coffers than changing behaviour. I think the challenge is to create an attitude about responsible dog ownership. Most people love their dogs so much they see them as little people. That's where the issues start. We all know about Pavlov's dog and conditioned responses. Dog's learn by a set of succinct commands consistenty given. The problem is most of us are poor at the "consistent" part and the dog gets confused and behaves accordingly. Perhaps we could develop a simple set of instructions, brand them and encourage councils to adopt them and promote them. I am thinking they could be a bit like some of the road safety "rules" like "Merge like a zip" and "Don't be a fool follow the 2 second rule". However the tone is more encouraging than punitive more poistive than authoritarian. The answer lies within the audience, the dog owners. My thinking is informed in the most part by my own experience of having to put down a dog in its prime because she bit a kid delivering free advertising brochures. I realised I had failed the dog by not training her better. But here's the rub; it was me who needed training not the dog! Cheers d

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