burraboy
17th September 2009, 07:44 AM
I'm sure anyone who keeps animals on a rural block will have these problems eventually, and we've just had our most recent episode. The problem, as usual, results from dog owners who won't control their animals, in this case our neighbours who let their two kelpies run free. They linked up with another dog and got stuck into our Boers, killing the buck. Unfortunately I was out when the attack occurred but the dogs were well identified by other neighbours who had problems as well. I didn't go off my head at them, I just gave them the weekend as a cooling down period, hoping they would at least come and apologise and possibly even offer some compensation (litle hope there). After three days there was no contact from them so I took the next steps
Now this may help somebody in the future as I have been frustrated in the past by the relevant authorities seeming inability to assist. We eventually got an interview with and incident report number from the police and then contacted the local council ranger. Having that report number seems to be a key to action! There was consultation between ranger and cops and the result was that the ranger visited the neighbours and was so impressed by their attitude and behaviour that he hit them with two $550 fines for having uncontrolled dogs.
Poor stupid bastards, if they had come and apologised and promised to control their dogs (and actually done so) we would have been appeased. I suppose we would still have been angry but at least the dog owners would have taken some responsibity for their inactions. The matter of compensation was largely irrelevant because we knew it would never happen, but instead of a 'sorry' and maybe $200 in our hand they are wearing $1100 worth of fines. That will never return our buck, but it's nice to have a small win!
Now this may help somebody in the future as I have been frustrated in the past by the relevant authorities seeming inability to assist. We eventually got an interview with and incident report number from the police and then contacted the local council ranger. Having that report number seems to be a key to action! There was consultation between ranger and cops and the result was that the ranger visited the neighbours and was so impressed by their attitude and behaviour that he hit them with two $550 fines for having uncontrolled dogs.
Poor stupid bastards, if they had come and apologised and promised to control their dogs (and actually done so) we would have been appeased. I suppose we would still have been angry but at least the dog owners would have taken some responsibity for their inactions. The matter of compensation was largely irrelevant because we knew it would never happen, but instead of a 'sorry' and maybe $200 in our hand they are wearing $1100 worth of fines. That will never return our buck, but it's nice to have a small win!