How much is that doggie in the window? The one with the waggly tail
How much is that doggie in the window? I do hope that doggie’s for sale.
Australia has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world. About 63% of Australian households own pets. Dogs are the most common pet, with 39% of households owning a dog. There are estimated to be 4.2 million pet dogs in Australia; 19 dogs for every 100 people.
Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) have been a part of our civilisation for centuries. Our partnership was likely originally based on a human need for help with herding and hunting, for an early alarm system, and for a source of food in addition to the companionship many of us today know and love. In return, dogs received companionship, protection, shelter, and a reliable food source.
The earliest confirmed domestic dog anywhere so far is from a burial site in Germany called Bonn-Oberkassel, which has joint human and dog interments dated to 14,000 years ago.
So why, after several millennia of domestication, are some of our adorable fur babies causing discourse and danger in our community as we repeatedly read in local media? Why do we hear of dogs suddenly and unexpectedly attacking and injuring other dogs or individuals? Why do some dogs seem akin to being unruly, troublesome kids?
Dogs are dependent on their owners much like children are dependent on their parents. Dog owners not establishing themselves as the authority figure will likely lead to what many will find to be unacceptable behaviour by dogs. Dogs are pack animals and will naturally look to an alpha leader in their group. One of the unfortunate downsides in many homes is that people fail to establish the pecking order inside their own home with a new dog. A dog needs to know from day one that the owner is the boss, and that means showing them what’s right and what’s wrong.
Like a child, if a dog is not “raised” properly, it can become a problem child. Dogs need consistent, proper training, and often times, ongoing reinforcement in order to become socially well- adapted members of our family and modern society. Proper training builds confidence in dogs. Improper corrections break the confidence of an owner’s growing puppy, and instill a sense of stress, fear, and anxiety as they go through their day. The aforementioned behavioural traits can lead to what we humans call “aggressive” acts against others.
So how is this relevant to Noosa Council?
A look at state regulations reveals that all dogs over the age of three months must be registered with their local council in accordance with the Animal Management (Cats & Dogs) Act 2008. Council’s website states, “Every dog owner must be responsible for their pet and ensure it does not pose a risk, or cause a nuisance, to other people or animals. All dogs must be adequately contained on the owner’s property, and they must not be allowed to roam. Dogs must be leashed in public areas, except for the Shire’s designated off-leash areas, where owners must still supervise them.”
Noosa Council provides a number of off-leash areas across Noosa so residents and their pooches can enjoy more of the shire’s wonderful outdoor environment together. A new fenced dog off-leash area at Chaplin Park is currently being considered under proposed future uses for the Noosaville Foreshore Land Use Masterplan.
How can Council promote responsible dog ownership? Well, we don’t have to search far to find what another SEQ Council is doing. Toowoomba Regional Council has taken a proactive approach and offers dog obedience training discounts to responsible dog owners. Toowoomba Regional Council acknowledges dogs that have been obedience trained are less likely to cause a nuisance. Therefore in the spirit of rewarding responsible dog owners, they offer a 50% registration discount for dogs that have reached an appropriate level of obedience from a recognised certified dog training provider. To qualify for this discount owners are required to have their dog obedience trained/assessed. Once a dog has qualified to the level of competency required, an obedience certificate is forwarded to Council for a discount on dog registration renewals. This is a smart incentive to encourage responsible dog ownership and social harmony between dogs, their owners and ordinary residents.
Are you a responsible dog owner?
Then visit these designated off-lead areas.
Noosaville – Weyba Foreshore Park
Lovin the iinitiative Open Noosa!
How about some facts on number of hospitalisations from dog attacks and environmental impact of dog waste!
Lets get some discussion going here!
Thanks Carole, we love the idea of an Open Noosa too!
We’ll see if we can get some data on the hospitalisations. With regards to the environmental impact from dog waste, Council distributes around 1.2 million dog poo bags in the Shire, and although we now have compostable dog poo bags I believe the waste would still just go to landfill, not to a commercial composting facility.
We attended a Source Reduction Workshop with Tangaroa Blue recently, and dog poo bags was one of the repeat offenders collected during beach clean ups on the Sunshine Coast. We stepped through some barriers to change to see why people would leave the bags behind and having bins in the right places played a key factor.
At the beach entrance near us, for example, there are four different entry points to the beach. There are no bins near the shower area where most people tend to leave the bags – the nearest bin isn’t that far away, but it’s not visible and up a flight of stairs leading to a busy road and not used as an access point by most people. The next bin is approximately 200m away along a boardwalk. Turn left instead of right at the stairs, and there are no bins to be found. It seems people find it easier to just leave the bags behind near the showers or toss it into the bush along the boardwalk.
An interesting point of discussion at the workshop centered around a school that introduced new recycling and green waste bins. It took a number of relocations of these bins before they had the correct impact and students started using them. If at first you don’t succeed – try something different until it works.
We think Noosa Council should look at user needs and get more bins into places that allow easy access to the people who use the bins rather than the contractors who collect these bins. These contractors are providing an essential service and should go the extra mile to do the job that they should be paid fairly to do. It makes more sense for one paid person to put in a little bit of extra effort rather than expect the hundreds of beach goers to do so – especially when it’s clear to see that they’re not!
Pet owners in Noosa Domain Village have recently formed the Noosa Domain Pet-Owners Network. Owners who subscribe to the network abide by a set of sensible guidelines which embrace responsible ownership, encourage socialization, provide a self-help list of contacts to look after pets if owners are incapacitated and share their pet encounters with other residents.