I have received a large number of enquiries about dog fouling as, following the thawing of recent heavy snow, Fido and his friends appear to have launched an early spring offence on local parks and pavements.
Dog Fouling is a difficult issue to solve. LCC has 4 dog wardens to cover the whole City Council area and although they will take action and prosecute those inconsiderate dog owners who allow their dogs to foul and not clean up - they are a limited resource and more work needs to be done to increase the enforcement and education elements around dog fouling.
How do we get more cash into combating dog fouling? The City Councils budget is already stressed and the big spending Departments are Education and Social Services. It would be a brave politician who proposes cutting those budgets to launch an effective attack on dog crap!
An alternative to this is to make the polluter pay. A reintroduced annual dog license for every dog in Britain, perhaps set at a fiver a year, would bring in substantially more resources to increase and upgrade enforcement campaigns. This would be renewed annually and dogs who are not licensed will be removed from the streets and rehoused (following payment of a new license) with more responsible owners. We could have a dog warden in every locality continuously cruising and keeping the dog crappers under very close supervision and surveillance.
As a dog owner myself I accept that I should contribute some cash on a regular basis to resolve the dog fouling business. The other costs for keeping a dog are far in excess of a basic dog license and will be a small additional price you pay to literally clear up the mess.
We will be putting this idea for debate at the next full council meeting in April and hope to get cross party support to crack down on dog crap (if that's not a bizarre image)!
Fidos dog fouling days could soon be over!
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