The Timaru District Council says the majority of dog owners do the right thing and clean up after their pets. (File photo).

As the volume of dog poo on Timaru footpaths soars under lockdown, animal control officers are warning they "won't hesitate" to issue $300 fines to those caught not picking up after their dogs.

Timaru District Council environmental regulation manager Debbie Fortuin said while there had not been an increase in "official dog fouling complaints", concerns had been raised through social media and other channels.

"Sadly the majority of dog owners do the right thing, it's just a small number of selfish owners that don't seem to understand that they need to clean up after their dog.

"As this is an issue being discussed nationwide, we think it's likely to be both an increased number of people walking around their local neighbourhood and noticing the dog waste, as well as an increase in people walking their dogs locally and not picking it up."

Animal control officers were regularly patrolling and "won't hesitate" to issue infringement notices to dog owners leaving poo behind, Fortuin said.

Hamish McNeilly/STUFF It is up to pet owners to take personal responsibility for their dogs and clean up after them, according to the Timaru District Council. (File pic)

"Dog fouling is a particularly challenging problem to deal with, and at the end of the day it's down to people taking personal responsibility for their pets and doing the right thing.

"This isn't to say that it's not a major concern, it can cause human and animal health issues as well as pollute our local environment, but realistically even in normal times we can't patrol every street every hour of the day."

Any dog poo that did not end up stuck to someone's shoe could enter the stormwater system and eventually the waterways, polluting places such as Caroline Bay and Saltwater Creek.

Fortuin said animal control officers were mainly focussed on responding to emergencies and other "high priority tasks", as well as helping educate people on rule changes while New Zealand is at Covid-19 threat level four.

"This is things such as dogs needing to be on a leash at all times, to the extension of the dog ban at Caroline Bay."

Dogs have been banned from the bay indefinitely as part of the council's efforts to minimise the virus' spread. Dogs were scheduled to return to the beach on April 1 until October 31.

Since the country went into lockdown council have received three complaints of dogs biting people, four of dogs biting another animal, ten of dogs rushing people, and three of dogs rushing other animals.