As published by NZ Herald in February 2026
By Councillor Josephine Bartley, Chair of the Regulatory and Safety Committee
Like most people, I was extremely sad to read about last week’s fatal dog attack in Northland – the fourth in the country in four years.
In my role as the chair of Auckland Council’s regulatory and safety committee, I hear about vicious dog bite injuries from our staff regularly: toddlers who will never smile in the same way again, adults whose limbs are so badly mauled they require amputation and older people whose bodies won’t heal like they used to. I know how brutal dog attacks can be and the trauma they leave on victims.
I also felt frustration. Just hours before the news broke, our staff received a letter from the Department of Internal Affairs. It was a response to yet another plea from the council to work with us on updating New Zealand’s 30-year-old dog control laws – changes that could help prevent attacks like the one that killed Mihiata Te Rohe.
Escalating problems in Auckland
In Auckland, we have not yet lost a life to a dog attack, but our Animal Management staff fear getting that call every day. Since 2021, the number of roaming dogs and reported attacks has climbed steeply – a flow-on effect of Covid lockdowns, when there was a boom in puppy ownership and a corresponding lack of desexing and socialisation. Throw in a cost-of-living crisis and we are left with a large population of dogs whose owners lack either the means or the will to care for them properly.
The council is doing everything it can to keep our region safe. In the past year, we have invested an extra $10 million into tackling dog-related issues: expanding shelter space, bringing on more staff and standing up an in-house vet service to ramp up free desexing of dogs in high-risk areas. These initiatives go well beyond the council’s core remit as a regulator, but the council is doing its best to reduce the risk to our communities with the tools available.
Last year, Auckland Council impounded a record 10,000 dogs, only half of which were claimed by owners. And while council staff, along with many rescue groups, are doing their best to rehome dogs where possible, many dogs have significant behavioural issues that mean they cannot be safely rehomed. There are also many more dogs than there are people willing to adopt. High euthanasia rates are the last thing our staff of dog-lovers want to see happening, but there is literally nowhere for these dogs to go.
Efforts not enough to curb trends
Despite the staff doing all they can, our streets still aren’t safe. Every day, Animal Management gets around 100 requests from the public for help with dog-related issues, most related to roaming dogs, which carry the risk of turning into attacks. I hear about people in our communities being scared to walk to school or the shops, and those experiencing blindness being unable to access guide dogs because the risk to them is too high. I’ve even witnessed my own senior shih tsu, Milo, being badly injured in an attack while I was walking him in Glen Innes.
As challenging as the situation in Auckland is, we are fortunate to be relatively well resourced compared with other regions across the country. There are councils facing the same pressures with far less capacity to respond, and that is why we are leading the charge for national reform. Introducing a local bill (as has been suggested) is not the right solution as these issues are not unique to Auckland. Nor do we need additional guidance or reporting. We need law change.
Law reform must come next
The Dog Control Act 1996 has not had a substantial review in almost 30 years and is no longer fit for purpose. Auckland Council has carried out significant policy work, backed up by years of data, and come up with clear, practical changes that could be enacted quickly – measures people might be surprised to learn are not already in place. Allowing councils to desex roaming dogs that pass through shelters, for example, or to require owners of dogs that repeatedly roam to install secure fencing.
We also need stronger powers to detain or seize dogs that pose a threat. Under current law, it is very difficult for councils to seize dogs, or to detain claimed dogs past a seven-day holding period, even when it is clear they’re going to offend again. Even after attacks, in many cases, they must give the dogs back to their owners, the alternative being a lengthy and costly prosecution process that can take years to go through the courts.
Despite last week’s letter, we are hopeful that the Government is now reviewing this position. I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister’s comments on RNZ on Monday morning – which followed three more people being critically injured in Christchurch in a dog attack over the weekend – when he said the Government will do what it can to give councils more powers.
As well as the loved ones of Mihiata Te Rohe and the wider Kaihu community, I feel for our neighbours at Kaipara District Council. I know they’ll be gutted that they couldn’t have done more to prevent Tuesday’s death. But here’s the hard truth: until we overhaul our outdated dog control laws, there will be an increasing number of tragedies like this one. The kind our officers can often see coming and still lack the power to stop.
Read original article on NZ Herald (Premium).