Due to errors in the text

Dog law needs to be amended again

Around 80,000 dogs are registered in Upper Austria.(Bild: Alexander)

The much-discussed Dog Law has only been in force for two months, but already needs to be amended again. Due to two incorrect numbers in the paragraphs, the police are currently unable to enforce the leash and muzzle requirement for listed dogs.

"Due to an editorial oversight, linguistic ambiguities and an incorrect reference in the new Upper Austrian dog keeping law need to be corrected," the office of the responsible animal welfare councillor Michael Lindner (SPÖ) told the "Krone" newspaper. While it is often the case with new laws that "linguistic ambiguities" are corrected, the "erroneous reference" in this case has quite serious consequences: The police are currently unable to check compliance with the leash and muzzle requirement for listed dogs. Nor can they currently check that no more than two large dogs can be kept at the same time.

Two numbers are incorrect
This is due to two incorrect numbers. They are now to be corrected and give the police their intended "rights of cooperation", as it is officially called. The proposal for this amendment is to be assigned to the responsible state parliament committee on Thursday and adopted in the following session on March 6.

However, infringements by dog owners will not remain sanction-free until then. This is because, as before, local authorities, such as the Linz city guard, can monitor compliance with the regulations.

No one noticed the mistake
The new dog keeping law with stricter rules for large and potentially dangerous four-legged friends only came into force on December 1st. According to Lindner's office, the draft bill from the state's specialist department was still correct. The drop in numbers then occurred during the preparation of the draft review. Despite intensive discussions on the law and many comments, nobody noticed it.

It was only the state police directorate that subsequently pointed out the error to the state of Upper Austria, which was first reported by the "OÖN". The reason for the new law on dog ownership was, as is well known, the fatal bite attack on a jogger in Naarn. The new paragraphs are intended to ensure greater safety.