By Alesha Capone
Wyndham council is calling on the 28,000 dog and cat owners in the municipality to provide feedback on its draft Domestic Animal Management Plan (DAMP).
DAMP, which will guide the direction of Wyndham’s Animal Management services across the next four years, aims to promote responsible pet ownership, encourage the registration and identification of dogs and cats, minimise the risk of dog attacks and lessen the potential for dogs and cats to be nuisances.
Wyndham’s community safety portfolio holder, Cr Susan McIntyre, said the council also wanted to hear from people about ways to help if a pet is lost and how to keep wildlife safe.
“There are over 28,000 existing dog and cat owners in Wyndham, and we know community safety and the safety of their pets is very important to them,” Cr McIntyre said.
“The great thing is, you don’t have to be a pet owner to participate in the survey, we would like to hear from everyone and get their thoughts on how we can best support the pet owners of Wyndham.”
Cr McIntyre said when the council ran a similar survey four years ago, almost 1000 people took part.
Some of the main issues identified in that survey included a call for more enforcement of the council’s cat curfew and more patrols to identify dogs being walked off lead.
In 2020, the council received 58 reports of dog attacks on people and 76 reports of attacks upon animals compared with 69 reports of dog attacks on people and 129 reports of attacks on animals in 2019.
The council also received 101 complaints about barking dogs last year, compared with 82 in 2019.
The survey will close on April 23, see www.theloop.wyndham.vic.gov.au/draft-domestic-animal-management-plan for details.
