wightdogs.com ISLE of WIGHT DOGS and OWNERS

Oh dear, and only one single Fixed Penalty Notice issued for dog fouling for the whole Island by any of the councils enforcing officers....http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/the_number_of_fixed_penalty_noti#comment-14965

so only one fine for fouling and one for a dog not being on a lead, two fines in a whole year this is crazy!

And no  fines at all by the 5 Dog Wardens?

How on earth is this addressing the fouling problem on the streets?

And just how much is it costing us to produce dog fouling regulations and all the various guidance on enforcing fixed penalty notices, and training and employing dog wardens and the officers that produce all the guidance, and prepare the documents for the Council to vote on. Not to mention the allowances of the Councillors debating and voting on the various regulations?

All this and more is paid for by us, only to have just one single fine issued in a year for fouling, this whilst the Council decimates annihilates our public services due to lack of money!!!

That is a very good question Pete but one I fear we are never likely to get an answer to, although as you state with all things taken into consideration it must be a great deal money and only one FPN for fouling in a whole year is ridiculous.

webmaster at December 8, 2010 at 7:45 AM

That is a very good question Pete but one I fear we are never likely to get an answer to, although as you state with all things taken into consideration it must be a great deal money and only one FPN for fouling in a whole year is ridiculous.

The fact that zero FPNs have been issued is lamentable, but it it is actually because the dog wardens cannot catch offenders and meet the almost impossible requirements for the issue of a notice.

The fact is that there is dog fouling, certainly in the Ryde East besach area, along North Walk in particular - the Faeces are there to be seen!

However, this is almost certainly a case of the few spoiling it for the many - I would be very surprised if any member of Wightdogs failed to clean up after their dog.

On Sunday 9th January I witnessed a dog owner kicking sand over his dog's freshly laid pile, sadly only about 20m from the childrens play area adjacent to Ryde Harbour public toilets. This sort of thing gets the majority of responsible dog ownerrs a bad name and leads to much of the vitriolic comment about re-introducing a dog ban.

I am neither a dog owner nor lover, but I think that owners should be allowed to take their dogs on the beach provided one can guarantee that all fouling will be cleared up immediately.

It seems to me that the 2 camps of dog owners and dog haters are stuck in an intransient battle of unreasonableness. On the one hand it would be draconian to continually restrict where dogs are allowed to be walked, but at the same time the presence of fouling both visible (on footpaths) and invisible (on the beach) is bound to lead to anger and ultimately may damage the Island's tourism industry.

The solution may well lie in more effective policing, but from Whightdogs members' standpoint a recognition that there is a problem, caused specifically by a small minority of anti-socially behaved people, would be a positive step forward.

I am one of the people who is neutral about dogs, but object strongly to the presence of fouling. I could spend my time collecting photographic and video evidence, and lobbying the council to strengthen the deterrants, but it strikes me that surely the majority responsible dog owning community must have a role to play in resolving the problem.

Without such a collaborative approach, the battle will continue and increasing amounts of councill officials' and councillors' time will be spent dealing with correspondence from both sides.

k9neutral

It appears strange to me k9 neutral that you should join an obviously staunchly pro-dog website and go to such lengths to demonstrate yourself as being neither dog lover or anti-dog, yet you suggest that the solution to the problem here lies with the responsible dog owners?!?

Is it not enough that we get the blame en masse for fouling, and it is also us who suffer the introduction of ever more draconian regulation due to a problem which is no fault of our own. Added to which fouling is as unpleasant for us as it is for anyone else, yet despite all of that you consider that it is us who should address the issue, rather than the council we elect and employ as a local authority. An authority apparently unable to assert its authority.

We also pay to have acts of parliament made in order to address the problem, and fund public consultations and documentation on guidance etc etc, and fund employment and training of wardens...and after all that one fine is issued in a whole year.

The fact is that there is nothing you or I can do to stop fouling as we cannot take the law into our hands, its the job of the authorities, who have the powers at their disposal to address the issue.

As you have seen  the council are not using those powers and consequently this council is not addressing the issue.

You state that "dog wardens cannot catch offenders and meet the almost impossible requirements for the issue of a notice". I beg to differ, all the dog warden has to do is spot a dog owner not clearing up and issue a FPN. Its cut and dried.

However we employ two full-time dog wardens and three part-time, and between them they did not issue a single fine for fouling in a year. (the one single FPN issued was by another enforcing officer of the council)

Dog fouling IS an issue, it is a lot worse in the streets than it is in the areas you mention, but it is a problem everywhere. What's more the problem is getting worse because people know that there is little chance of being caught. Last year I hoped that by demonstrating on this website that the council only handed out ten fines for fouling it would embarrass them into taking this responsibility seriously, as you can see that did not work,.

So what do you suggest? Other than vigilantism that is, if the only bodies that can address the problem can not, or will not, do so.