Police logged 300 dog incidents in two years

The statistics were disclosed following an Access to Public Information request.

The request asked for the number of aggressive dog incidents that were reported, but the response from the police was that the nature of the incidents ranged from noise complaints to attacks and it was not possible to be more specific about the number or nature of attacks.

Further details sought included the breeds of dogs involved in attacks, how many dogs had bitten people, attacked other dogs or livestock and how many dogs had had to be destroyed.

‘In order to provide further detail as to the nature of the various incidents or other details such as breed of dog, it would require each incident to be examined individually and it is not necessarily the case that all of the specific information requested here is included in the records of individual incidents,’ said the police response.

‘For this reason, exception 2.9 (voluminous or vexatious requests) is applied to the remainder of the questions included in the request.’

The police said the information it keeps is stored in two databases and there was a possibility of incidents being recorded in both.

Two specific incidents were referred to in the API, one in which the person making the request was bitten in July 2018, and another in which a child was attacked in October last year.

Both incidents were recorded in the figures, the police response said.

The two databases, called Vision and Niche, included 271 and 62 references to recorded reports and/or offences involving dogs, it said.

While being unable to give as much information as requested, the police said that if there was additional information it could provide which was more narrow in scope, it would endeavour to do so.