The man in charge of Tauranga City Council’s animal control department is supportive of banning pitbull dogs but says any ban would be difficult to enforce because of the large variety of bull breeds.
His comments follow the vicious attack on 34 year old Ohauiti man Brent Johanson, who was left with serious head and arm injuries after he was mauled by his two dogs in his home last Friday.

The two dogs were a 16 month old American pitbull terrier and an eight year old Staffordshire bull terrier cross, which were destroyed on the day of the attack.
Brent is now recovering in Waikato Hospital after a five hour surgery operation and a period in the hospital’s High Dependency Unit.
Tauranga City Council’s manager of environmental compliance and monitoring, John Payne, says bull breeds cause horrific injuries when they attack.
“I’m always concerned about the level of aggression and injury these dogs can inflict.”
He says the only problem with a ban on bull breeds is that it would be hard to distinguish if a dog comes under that breed category.
“There’s just so many of them and so many that are closely related. It would be quite hard to enforce.”
He gives a few examples including the English bull terrier, the Staffordshire bull terrier and the American Staffordshire bull terrier, which also have a variety of closely related cousins.
But John says bull breeds, like any other dog breed, can be lethal in the wrong hands.
“I think it’s a people problem more than a dog problem. The owner tends to have a bigger impact on the dog than the breed.”
“The criminal and social background of the owner has the greatest impact on the behaviour of the dog,” says John.
American pitbulls make up the majority of unregistered dogs in Tauranga, says John.
Animal control will not be investigating how the dogs were treated before they turned on their owner last Friday.
“The dynamic of the relationship between the dog and the owner is key to the aggression but we just don’t know what happened.”
The younger 16 month old American pitbull terrier had just reached puberty and John says often dogs will start asserting dominance at that stage.
He says this could have been a key factor that eventually led to the attack.