Canine compliance has dropped-off in Invercargill with the council admitting there are issues with staffing.

Challenges with dog registrations came to light at a Tuesday meeting, where council group manager consenting and environment Jonathan Shaw was candid about the struggles.

“It’s a challenge to actually keep a track of it. It’s also a particularly hard area to recruit to. We are having a few struggles there at the moment,” Shaw said.

“We are aware of it. We do our level best.”

His comments followed concerns raised by councillor Ian Pottinger that the number of unregistered dogs was an unknown.

Pottinger had recently paid his own dog’s registration fee but said it would be easy to slip under the radar if your dog wasn’t causing any trouble.

Shaw said the council did rely on the community to comply.

“We have seen something of a drop off in compliance, which we can possibly attribute to hard times,” he said.

The report showed unpaid registrations totaled $62,155 for 634 dogs, as at 31 May.

That sum would likely soon increase, with council group manager finance and assurance Patricia Christie noting annual registration bills were typically sent out in June.

Christie said it was difficult for the council to “collect” the fee because of the possibility a dog had died.

The number of dogs registered with the council was 9,257.

Last August, missing data on the number of euthanised dogs from a control report irked deputy mayor Tom Campbell.

The council later revealed 38 dogs were put down from 2023/24 — an increase from 25 for the previous reporting period.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air