Auckland Council's menacing dog amnesty has won the Government Public Relations award at the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ) awards. The awards were held in Christchurch on 25 May.
The 2016 amnesty led to 1114 dog owners registering 1225 previously unregistered dogs. The response was ten times better than the team had hoped for.
The amnesty was across Auckland but particularly targeted south Auckland and parts of west Auckland where incidents of dog attacks on both people and other animals were higher than the rest of the region.
Before the amnesty, out of 30,000 registered dogs in south Auckland, just 700 were listed as pit bull types, one of the qualifying breed types. Now there are double the number of registrations of pit bulls and other menacing dogs in south Auckland alone.
Auckland Council was also highly commended for communication on the Auckland Unitary Plan.
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki won the Special Project award for 'The search for the lost Lindauers: Reaching the regions'.
