Pets Talk: Government's Tight- Leash

0:00But more about 7.0.2. Don't apply me to plus.com. So how many dogs should you be allowed to have in your own home? Should your neighbors get a stay, say, rather? Should the city be able to take your animal away? Cape Town is rewriting its animal keeping rules. Dogs would generally have to be leached in public unless they designated free running areas. There's a whole lot more. But some of the headlines are making the sun newer than it is. Limits on the number of dogs and cats you can already are already there about how many you can have and how many you cannot. So is this really by protecting animals and people? Or we get into the point where the city has just got way too much say? So Cape Town has published a draft animal keeping by law, 2026 for public comment until the 29th of September 2026. My guess this morning. Well known vet, vet surgeon, Dr. Melvin Greenberg, very good morning to you.

1:00Good morning. Is there anything new in this? Well, it's been tried before and unfortunately it's never worked on the basis that the people who control this kind of facility is not really qualified to know exactly how to run this kind of control. For example, if you have a facility say you're in a townhouse or then to have a working dog like a border collie or a Belgian shepherd is the height of cruelty. Because a dog has got no visual stimulation. It's got no opportunity to exercise. So it's not really how many dogs you have. It's which dogs you have. Okay. So you can for example be in a townhouse and have 10 shit shoes, 20 pugs, and you're not going to have a problem with the neighbors because they are not vocal and they are not intrusive.

2:02You can have 20 cats and nobody will know. But it's the type of dogs that you keep. So the control should be under the guidance of veterinarians, animal behaviors, and dog trainers to advise on how to do things. Certainly I think every animal should be marked chipped. Every single animal should be vaccinated. Every animal should be dewormed. That is because it's a human health hazard to have dogs that end cats that are not healthy enough. How often should they be dewormed? Every three months at least. As a kid, not a puppy, it's more intensive. Usually about four, five times before they're six months old. But it's a human health hazard. People can contract the worms from the pets and the biggest problem in Cape Town is that a lot of people take their dogs to the beaches to toilet and they are leaving their deposits there

3:05with worm eggs. And what happens is if somebody sits on that sand anytime in the future, you can have what they call visual or cutaneous larval migrants which is hookworm migrating through the skin and causing a very, very severe skin reaction. This is quite a common issue along the coast. And it's important to protect the public. A lot of people unfortunately do not clean up off to their dogs and they use the beaches for the dogs to toilet. And you see them kick the sand over. You see the sand over and they don't clean up. So if they can create a department where you've got highly trained curators, highly trained gods who know the rules, you catch somebody doing something like that, you find them on the spot. And I did a calculation because I do spend

4:06a fair amount in Cape Town that if you had to find everybody who broke the rules, you could employ a lot of people. Because they do not, they do not, the majority do not clean up. And although they have in certain areas as certain poles that have got bags for them to clean up after their dogs, a lot of people don't do it. And sorry, just going back to deworming. I mean, people must also be aware it's expensive, right? So you've got to build a scent when you get an animal. Well, it depends. If you want to use a good quality remedy, it does cost a fair amount of money for a large dog. So you might be 180 rent for a very large dog, but for a small dog it might cost you 30 rent. But the cost of having the problem is as far worse. I continue, I've had a client that's passed away from a worm in her lungs. And I've had many people who've had worms

5:10migrating under the skin, especially if they're sitting on grass and sand for lengthy periods, where dogs have been using those areas for toileting. So it is a human health hazard, but the dog can give it to you by licking your mouth, the cat can give it to you by licking your mouth. So the people who have dog sleeping on their bed, in their bed should be a little bit more intensive. And deworm themselves. So it is a human health hazard, and can be very serious. So that's something I can appeal to everybody to do. OK, so let's just go back to what we being asked at the moment. So I mean, what are the rules out there and what needs to be tightened? So looking at the type of dogs, I mean, what sort of role do your neighbors have? What sort of say do they have? And say I've got these big dogs, and I take them walking every day, does that offset the problem? I think the number of people that walk their dogs in Cape Town is admirable,

6:11because they've got the right facilities for it. And that is what dogs want to do. They want to be out snuffing, and exploring and exercising, whereas in cities like Johannesburg, and the Centre and the areas, dogs are behind four walls, they are frustrated, and that's why so many dogs have got claustrophobia. They've got no visual stimulation and develop all kinds of behaviour problems, but the dogs in Cape Town are a lot more socialised, and they start very, very young meeting other dogs, and there's less chance of intercane integration. But it is important that every single puppy goes to puppy socialisation, to learn how to behave with other people and other dogs, and then go to a little bit of basic obedience to control the dogs. It's now you're having a dog running on the beach, and it doesn't even listen to its name. And you can't control that, because they have been fights, and they have been litigation with people who can't control their dogs.

7:15But you've also got people who keep dogs that should not be out in the public that are potentially aggressive, and I've been in, in my town, about 28 court cases, where dogs have killed other dogs, hurt people very badly, or even killed people, and that is when they are selecting things like pit bull terriers, burbles, which they are potentially good pets, provided you do the basics, provided you do everything from at least eight weeks of age, but you've got an element in this country of young men, who want to give off this macho image, that they've got a potentially powerful aggressive dog, because they themselves are socially inept, and possibly not very bright. It's a real, real problem that these people keep these dogs with the intention of showing aggression,

8:15and that is something that has to be controlled, because we have got the dangerous dogs acting in this country, which is implemented by the SPCA's, and any dog said, or aggressive, will get euthanized. And how long can a dog be kept for? I mean, once it's taken away from you, what's the usual process? Well, I've seen many dogs that are are the seized or handed into animal welfare organisations, and very often the people don't even follow it up, and they never ever look for their own dogs. Fortunately, with a microchip, you know exactly who owns the dog, and you can contact them and say to them, well, we've got your dog what you're going to do about it. So that's why I believe every single dog should be microchipped as a rule, every single cat should be microchipped, provided to pet cat. And so I mean, I've got two jack russles, or I had two jack russles, and the one used to, as a puppy used to run away all the time. Thank goodness for that microchip.

9:15Thank goodness. Yes, and also what you find is dogs that do run away, don't like to be harmed for walls. They also escape because if they are not taught to tolerate confined facilities in an early stage, they do want to run away. And what most people have done in the past, and I've seen this happen, where a dog runs away, and the people find the dog, and they give it a hiding, and shatter it. So the dog gets, the dog's getting punished for coming home. Yes, yes, yes. Instead of loving the dog, they get punished for coming home. But jack russles are not ideal for small areas. You see, I find out. I believe small dogs, small houses, you do not keep jack russles in the city because they farm dogs. But they are dogs that are very suitable for townhouses, for apartments that can tolerate endless confinement. And that's what people should look at.

10:16But a lot of people don't consult the experts, and say, this is my lifestyle. I don't want to go jogging every day. What do I keep? So you get people who come in, they like a Dalmatian because it's got spots in it. They watch the movies, and that's what the kids want. And they don't realize that this dog has to be out there almost all day jogging, because they used to run with the horses in Romania. And they need to protect the horses and have outside exercise. And then these dogs are developed behavior problems because they are in cabin fever. So people must be very, very careful with the selection of dogs for their lifestyle, have their microchip dewormed and whatever. And always in public, going back to the laws on a leash. If the dog is well-socialized, and it's got a good temperament, it's not necessary. It is really not necessary. But if somebody's got a boisterous dogwood, unpredictable,

11:16or they've adopted a dog from some animal welfare without knowing the history behind it, it then has to be evaluated by a veterinarian who specializes in animal behavior or an animal behaviorist or dog trainer to determine whether this dog's got social skills. Because if it doesn't have social skills, then that person better make sure that they're insured because the damages can cost them a lot of money. That's right. A lot of money because I've been in court cases where it's ended up in millions with the damage done to people. In fact, there's one going on in Cape Town at the moment where the dog just jumped on a person because that is not what the dog is supposed to do. Yes. And the person fell over and broke the leg through the knee and that person's permanently disabled. So that has ended up in a very serious litigation because surgery was close on 2 million rand

12:17and the person is able to walk but it's not completely competent. So the way a dog behaves is a reflection of the owner and that is what people have to understand. And dogs used for hunting? Well, this is something that is another macho attitude. There is no need to hunt anymore. This is those dogs that are used for hunting should be the so-called Africana dogs or the Belgian shipards but those should be for the anti-poaching teams. But for people to go out into any felt or into any area to hunt, say in Cape Town on the mountains and they're taking hunting dogs, those people should be prosecuted because it harms our wild death. There's no discrimination of what they catch, what they kill and there's no reason for it. There's no purpose in the stay-in age for people to do that.

13:20So I would ban the hunting completely. There's no logic behind it in the stay-in age. Melvin, if somebody wants to find out about what they need to know to operate within the law when it comes to the dog and the rules and all of that, what is there a website? Is there where can they go to find out these rules? Well, there are dog bar laws in Cape Town and that's where it normally is based. Every city's got its own dog bar laws. Whether they implement it or not is another story. I find that it's got to be very carefully and intelligently done and people have to be consistent because in a lot of places bar laws have been created but there's nobody to police it. For example, we've had situations where dogs have to be on the leash all the time. It's not necessary. But at the same time, we have to have people like they're having dogpox overseas.

14:21You've got, and I've seen wonderful dogpox in America, where you have to pay to go into the park and there's a curator. And they see whether you have got a dog that's vaccinated, that it's in good condition, that's got a good temperament and you're allowed to enter. And then there's facilities there for people to sit and for the dogs to drink water, whatever they want to do. They socialize, but the moment there's a conflict or the dog is not being cleaned up after there's a fine and it's a spot fine. And that is the way to do it. But you need to employ people who are knowledgeable and who are honest. Yes, I was going to say. To be honest, that you don't pay them. For the bribe. For the bribe. Let's leave it there. Dr. Melvin Greenberg, thank you so much for coming in.