Straying and aggressive dogs are a problem in many local communities – one that nobody wants to get any worse. That’s why animal management is important for not only keeping people safe, but preventing the problem from happening in the first place.

Armourguard provides animal management services to local bodies around New Zealand, including some where the relationship spans many years. This valuable service for local communities includes dealing with wandering stock and local bylaw breaches. However, our animal management teams are mostly involved with problems related to poor dog ownership and the community issues that arise as a result.

In relation to enforcing the Dog Control Act 1996, our main animal management responsibilities are:

• Reducing the risk and nuisance that dogs pose in the community by removing aggressive dogs that threaten or attack people, other animals or live-stock and impounding uncontrolled and wandering dogs.
• Assessing and controlling noisy / barking nuisance dogs.
• Enforcing dog registration compliance and the subsequent follow ups.
• Educating dog owners and school children about responsible dog ownership, dog control and safety around dogs.
• Managing animal shelters, including efforts to reunite dogs with their owners or rehome suitable unclaimed dogs.

Dedicated animal management teams

Our dedicated team for one longstanding council client comprises six frontline animal management officers. Their roles involve investigating, locating and collecting wandering or aggressive dogs and delivering them to the shelter. There, the dogs are looked after by three shelter attendants who provide for their food, cleaning, exercise and any other welfare needs.

The team is headed by a manager and team leader (who – accompanied by her four-legged assistant – also delivers dog education sessions to schools and community groups).

Although it seems straightforward at face value, animal management is a specialised field that incorporates many security-related skills.  Dealing with angry or aggressive dog owners can be challenging on its own but the added dimension of dogs demands that animal management officers (AMOs) face a whole new set of potential risks and therefore require a whole new skill set.

Often, it is the dog owners who can be extremely challenging and Armourguard’s security knowledge and expertise is very useful in such situations, with our team members being trained to recognise, assess and de-escalate potentially threatening situations. This allows animal management officers to then concentrate on the sometimes aggressive and difficult dogs.

Security skills important in animal management

Our frontline and shelter team members manage every situation from advising concerned members of the public about their rights in relation to animal management issues like wandering or barking dogs, through to engaging and educating dog owners who may be angry about their dog being impounded and/or being served with infringement notices relating to breaches of the Dog Control Act.

These roles require resilience and positivity, being pragmatic and hands-on and having good decision-making skills. But most of all frontline and shelter animal management team members need to be good with people and dogs and know how to read both.

Such skills are not only important for their own safety, but for the dogs and their owners alike. Customer service and experience is our “go to woah” of how we engage with our customers at every part of their journey and interaction with us. If it’s important to you then it is important to us.

Every effort made to re-home animals

Where safe and if appropriate, every effort is made to return dogs to their owners or find them a new home. To this end, our council client’s own animal management team has strong relationships with a local dog adoption service, that has nationwide links and has also established its own social media site promoting dogs for adoption once they have undergone independent assessment.

This way we can ensure that as many suitable dogs as possible can be placed with their new homes and owners, anywhere around New Zealand.