Compliance in Animal Management

by Virginia Jackson

In 1995 we commenced a two-year review of the literature on regulatory compliance.

At the time, remarkable advances were being made in other areas of health and social policy (e.g. smoking, littering, safe driving) and it was thought lessons were potentially available for urban animal management (UAM). The review resulted in a series of papers by Virginia Jackson to the National Conference on UAM in 1995 and 1996 entitled:

1. Regulatory compliance: exploring its limitations'; and

2. Rethinking approaches to urban animal management: a review and integration of the strategies available'

The fundamental conclusion of the two papers is that regulatory approaches will not, on their own, solve all of the problems we deal with in UAM. They need to be supplemented by a carefully planned mix of non-regulatory approaches that emphasize voluntary and passive compliance with the standards we set for responsible behavior by pet owners.

Readers are referred to these papers for a fully referenced review of the issues (Jackson 1995, Jackson 1996). The following discussion is an integration of the two papers.

In Australia, UAM is the name given to a range of issues associated with the management of domestic pets living in the urban environment. In the early days, it was relatively straightforward - registration, strays and a few aggressive dogs. Defecation by dogs was largely a maintenance issue, excessive barking was something that neighbors sorted out between themselves and cats and wildlife weren't on the agenda at all. How things have changed. Each state now has an established legal framework covering, in some cases, both dogs and cats and the ambit of control has grown into what seems like an ever-expanding array of contexts. These new concerns are not all as straightforward as their earliest cousins. Many are inherently subjective. Others we don't yet know a lot about. And just about all of them are complex and multi-faceted, requiring knowledge of animal behavior, the various triggers to compliance by humans and the management of tolerance.

It is not surprising that local authorities around Australia have traditionally focused on enforcement approaches to managing domestic pets (i.e. enforcement of laws, orders etc). UAM originated in Council by-laws departments at a time when enforcement of rules was the routine response to handling a range of different complaints. However it is now recognized that more sophisticated approaches are required to supplement the enforcement task.

The first paper in this series explored the limitations of enforcement in securing desired standards of behavior in a whole range of policy contexts. The intention was not to undermine the need for regulation in UAM but to ensure we consider the most appropriate mix of tools for the particular problems at hand. It is worthwhile at this point revisiting the limitations of regulation before we go on to consider other approaches.

A regulatory approach is suited to problems that are well understood, guided by clear objective standards and which lend themselves to empirical testing. Many problems are not so straightforward. Because of their relative rigidity and permanence, heavy reliance on regulations to solve complex problems needs to be questioned.

The more we know about most social problems, including those in UAM, the more complex they seem to become. Many problems have more than one cause, which interact with one another and vary in different contexts. Detailed analysis is often precluded by political pressures for a 'quick fix'. A regulatory approach is always tempting because it smacks of conclusive action - the problem will be 'solved' if we enforce a new regulation. That might be appropriate if the problem has a known solution but many problems don't. It is sometimes wiser to make small advances with policy instruments that embody sufficient flexibility for a change in direction as our knowledge about the problem increases and as the causal forces themselves change. Flexibility is not an inherent feature of the regulatory approach.

Because of their complexity, the community rarely agrees on what to do about complex problems or fully appreciates the tradeoffs involved. And, to make matters more complex, the balance of opinion tends to shift over time as arguments move in and out of favor and new issues arise. What often happens is that a proposed regulation becomes so watered down to accommodate the diversity of viewpoints that it ceases to have any practical effect. It might be more effective, in these circumstances, to concentrate on less contentious non-regulatory options such as public education.

Regulations often have unintended consequences. By their very nature, unintended consequences are hard to predict. However that doesn't absolve us from carefully examining the seriousness of possible consequences of all new regulations. It is extremely hard to abandon regulations even when adverse side effects begin to outweigh gains. Not only do they have statutory backing, but they often develop a momentum of their own which, once established, is extremely difficult to subvert.

Making rules tends to be easier than implementing them and rule makers often under-estimate the many practical difficulties involved. It is sobering to realize that many regulations are, by and large, unenforceable either because they are so vague as to be meaningless or because they set standards that are unattainable. A cynic might say that rules are often just lip service to appease powerful interests - politicians can be seen to be 'doing something about the problem without posing any real threat to the activities of those affected by the controls.

Unenforceable and symbolic regulations may offer a short-term solution but they can cause more harm than good by creating conflicting community expectations that deepen existing social divisions.

Individuals are more likely to comply with laws they think are reasonable. Unjust or unreasonable regulations have been shown to breed resentment and resistance, even with the threat of enforcement.

Education is now the routine answer to regulatory failure. However no amount of education will achieve universal compliance with laws that are basically unreasonable or unjust.

Extremely stringent standards are a powerful incentive for inaction by regulatory authorities.

First, inaction may reflect enforcement officers' quite plausible belief that the regulation requires them to control an activity to an absurd point. Second, inaction may be mindful of the political backlash that could result from enforcing very stringent standards.

Finally, inaction may be cognizant of the need for a great deal of information to support a review of enforcement action (whether judicial or in-house).

The net result may actually be less control over an activity than would result from a more flexible approach to the problem.

Stringent controls also impose heavily on an agency resource leaving other activities free from regulatory control or attention. By defending overly stringent regulations that provide limited extra benefits at high marginal costs, a busy authority spends both precious resources and political capital. Doing so limits their capability to address other, more significant problems.

A new regulation may displace rather than eliminate a problem because it has not attacked the problem's root cause. Displacement may be spatial (the problem shifts to another area), temporal (it shifts to another time of the day) or substantive (it shifts to another related area of concern that is affected by the regulation). Sometimes the displaced problem will have greater impact than that which it replaces.

We will always need some enforcement, particularly to bring the 'bad apples' into line. Rules also have a role to play in broad scale attitudinal change. However the beneficial effects of regulation should not blind us to its shortcomings. As a policy tool, it is inherently inefficient because of its focus on means (e.g. leashed dogs, cat curfews) rather than ends (responsible behavior) and because it consumes vast resources in maintaining an enforcement presence for benefits that are not always assured (you can't control what happens 5 minutes after you leave). This doesn't mean that UAM laws should be abandoned. Instead we should recognize the inherent failings of regulation and understand how these failings operate in the particular policy context in which we are working - spending all our resources on enforcement will not likely to achieve universal compliance or responsible behavior by everyone all the time.

By contrast, voluntary compliance, if it can be achieved, will just about always provide more meaningful, lasting changes in behavior. It depends more on overcoming ignorance, indifference and incompetence than on prescribing concrete forms of acceptable behavior. Education is the latest all-embracing buzzword. However it is not easy - there are a many approaches to choose from and it is requires careful planning and skill. What is needed in UAM is a framework to help us plan the best mix of approaches on the basis of a more complete understanding of the full range of tools available.

The second paper in this series was a first step towards the development of such a framework. It presents the tools available highlighting lessons learned in comparable areas of urban policy.

Most pet owners are typically responsible. The part of the management task in UAM is with the few who don't behave responsibly.

The reasons why people do and don't comply with UAM standards are obviously of central interest. What follows below is a tentative model of compliance in UAM, adapted from the generalized model first suggested by Troy in 1989. Thus non-compliance in UAM may be :

Inadvertent due to:

1. Ignorance (1) - people aren't aware that the rules exist or apply to them.

2. Ignorance (2) - people are aware of the rules but don't know that they don't comply (e.g. excessive barking happens while they are at work)

3. Ignorance (3) - people are aware of the rules but don't know how to comply (e.g. they don't know how to stop their dog barking excessively).

4. Indifference, forgetfulness or oversight.

Deliberate due to:

5. A game approach to rules - implies no serious rejection of the rules but sees it as acceptable for people to try to get by without complying and seeing it as a 'fair cop' when caught.

6. Rejection of the rules - non-compliance within 'safe' limits, private protest, non-specific, unorganized and may simply be a challenge to authority.

7. Political/moral protest on specific issues - may be an individual setting an example or more organized protest by groups.

8. General civil disobedience or refusal to cooperate (often across all kinds of rules and regulations).

Quite clearly, different strategies are appropriate for different dimensions of non-compliance.

So what strategies are available to change the behavior of irresponsible pet owners? The list below is not necessarily exhaustive but it contains the strategies considered in most change campaigns. Some of them are obvious. Others, we use already but don't think of as strategies per se. Still others have been tried in other policy areas but not in UAM. Considering them together allows us to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of each and the circumstances in which they are most appropriately used.

The first strategy concentrates on changing people's attitudes. The underlying assumption is that attitudes cause behavior. Many of the high profile education campaigns in other policy areas (e.g. anti-litter, safe driving etc) have concentrated on changing attitudes in the hope of influencing people's subsequent behavior.

The remaining techniques collectively focus on changing behavior. They target the behavior irrespective of the attitudes associated with it. Regulation is the behavior-change technique we are most familiar in UAM but there are several others that we consider in following sections.

One final strategy, just starting to be seen in Australia, is to promote responsible behavior by encouraging a closer relationship between people and their pets. The argument here is that people are likely to behave responsibly when they have a stronger bond with their pet.

It is understandable that there is so much interest in changing attitudes. If people are made aware of their actions, it follows that they will be more likely to act responsibly. However much of the early research in other policy areas showed weak causal links between attitudes and behavior. It was not until the late 1970s that more sophisticated studies led to wider acceptance of the attitude-causes-behavior explanation. By 1981, researchers were no longer questioning if attitudes predict behavior, but when attitudes predict behavior.

A central concept in this new research is the notion of "attitude accessibility" which is of particular significance to UAM. The theory holds that each of us holds a multitude of attitudes. Some we feel strongly about and they are "accessible" in helping guide our behavior. Others we're only vaguely aware of and they are "inaccessible" in guiding our behavior.

For example, people may keep their dog leashed in designated on-leash areas because they understand that it is the responsible thing to do. The attitude about responsible behavior is accessible and it guides their behavior.

By contrast, if someone is only vaguely aware of the on-leash designation - they might have 'seen something about it in the paper without it registering then the attitude is likely to be inaccessible in guiding their behavior and other factors will come into play. The person may fail to keep their dog leashed because the apparent norm is that letting your dog off the leash is acceptable (as evidenced by other unleashed dogs in the park, lack of signs etc).

There are two critical determinants of attitude accessibility. The first is repeated expression: the more an attitude is associated with a behavior, the greater the strength of association and the greater the likelihood that the attitude will be accessible. This means that the more the message is relayed, the greater the chance of it being accessible when someone is faced with a decision about which way to behave.

The second determinant of attitude accessibility is the manner of attitude formation. Evidence tends to show that attitudes formed through personally experiencing the behavior themselves are likely to be more readily accessible than attitudes formed by other means such as reading or hearing about the requirement.

Behavior-change techniques target a change in the behavior rather than the attitudes associated with it. The argument is not that changing attitudes doesn't work, but that it can be expensive and slow to show results. Often we need to call on other techniques to use in the meantime. Some analysts take the argument further and say that when the consequences of a behavior are unclear, vague or remote we should not expect many people to change their behavior as a result of a change in attitudes alone. They believe people need to experience the change in behavior as well and that this can be achieved through the use of appropriately selected and designed behavioral techniques.

Behavior-change techniques are usually classified as either antecedent or consequence techniques depending on whether they encourage or stop a behavior from happening in the first place (antecedents) or encourage or stop a behavior from happening in the future (consequences).

Antecedents include:

• Provision of information;
• Verbal or written messages (prompts);
• Design of the environment;
• Community involvement; and
• Commitment and goal setting.

One further antecedent, relevant to feces management, is unremoved litter existing in the setting already.

Each of these is now considered in turn.

A problem like excessive barking will not be solved if people don't know how to solve it. A heavy-handed enforcement approach, even changing people's attitudes, will be ineffectual if people don't know what to do. Thus the first technique for overcoming ignorance is to show people how.

Many dog owners have no notion of training animals and work on folk misinformation (rub his nose in it if he urinates in the house) or patent absurdities (beat or reprimand the dog for not coming when it finally comes). Many don't realize that problem behaviors can be eliminated or prevented by proper training and understanding of the animal's natural behavior.

In Australia, lack of information is one component of the management task especially with the newer, more complex dimensions of UAM. Considerable progress has already been made already with programs that provide people with the information they need to be responsible pet owners (e.g. Pet Pep, Canine Good Citizen, Selectapet and so on).

Formal programs, however, are only part of the story. Councils should be tapping away at the educative function in all their dealings with the public. It should be an explicit objective of every aspect of the UAM function whether it is out on patrol, dealing with a complaint, or issuing a citation. Increasingly the vision will be one of friendly adviser rather than patrolling inspector. It implies training in pet care and animal husbandry and is a far cry from their feared status as 'dog catcher' of years gone by.

Prompts can be written (signs, brochures, flyers) or verbal. Verbal information delivers the same types of information as written messages but in face to face contacts. Obviously prompts have information value as well, however of interest here, is their use as triggers to responsible behavior. The examples below are from other policy areas but have clear application to UAM.

To be effective, prompts should have the following characteristics:

1. The prompt should be administered close to the opportunity to provide the associated response;

2. The prompt should specifically state the desired response;

3. The desired response should be relatively convenient; and

4. The prompt should be conveyed in polite non-demanding language.

Empirical studies generally support these criteria. In studies of litter disposal it has been shown that identifying a particular disposal location with specific instructions was more effective than were non-specific instructions. Thus signs that said, "Clear your own table" in a cafeteria were clearer and most effective when disposal sites were visible. Even better in this study were signs that read "Place your trays and dishes in the tray holders along the west wall". The message was clear and the desired response was relatively convenient.

The importance of politeness and the positive nature of the message have also been explored. Messages making explicit commands prohibiting litter (Don't litter) have actually been shown to generate an increase in littering. More effective are normative appeals such as "Help Keep Your Pool Clean".

Another study looked at the difference between written and verbal appeals to reduce littering and damage to trees in a forest campground area. Brochures were given to two different groups of campers. One group received the brochures only, a second group was given the brochure with a personal appeal to reduce littering and tree damage, and a third group was used as a control (i.e. no prompts were given to them). Compared to the control group, both treatment groups exhibited markedly less littering behavior. The group receiving a personal appeal also displayed significantly fewer problem behaviors than did the brochure only group.

If these conclusions can be extended to UAM (and intuitively it would seem that it can), then it has implications for the day to day activities of the patrolling Animal Control Officer (ACO). Built into their work would be the use of a battery of verbal and written prompts. This happens already. It is cost effective and can be absorbed into day to day operations. However it needs to be spelled out explicitly, and supported with training and encouragement from senior rangers/administrative staff.