Tribunal refuses to let a dog go home while a council destruction order is under review (SACAT, 2026)

What happened

On 29 May 2026 the City of Port Adelaide Enfield issued a Destruction Order for the owner's dog under the Dog and Cat Management Act 1995. The order said the dog was to be destroyed no earlier than 29 June 2026 and that, until then, the dog was to be kept at the Animal Welfare League.

On 10 June 2026 the owner applied to SACAT to review that order. Two days later the tribunal, acting on its own initiative, stayed (paused) the part of the order requiring the dog to be destroyed, so the dog could not be put down while the review was on foot. The tribunal expressly said the part of the order requiring the dog to be detained at the Animal Welfare League would continue in force until further order. The council had been consulted before that stay was issued and did not oppose pausing the destruction, but it does not appear the owner was consulted.

When the owner received that order he contacted the tribunal and asked for the pause to be extended to the detention part of the order, so that the dog could stay at his home instead. He told the tribunal he had been living away from home while dealing with an illness and then a death in his family and had now returned, that he lives in a two-storey townhouse with a secure rear yard, that the only way out of the yard is through the house and the front door, and that two gates stop the dog leaving from the front. He also raised the cost of keeping the dog at the Animal Welfare League, and he disputed that his dog was involved in the incidents the council alleged.

The council opposed any change. It said the dog was being professionally looked after at the Animal Welfare League, was secure and was not showing signs of distress. It said the dog had been involved in four incidents of escalating seriousness, without provocation, in which it attacked, harassed or chased a person or an animal, and that the central issue was community safety. There was also a factual dispute about whether the dog was a "guard dog" under the Act, the council saying the owner had registered it as one and the owner saying he had not been told that any particular requirements applied to keeping a guard dog.

What each side wanted

The owner asked the tribunal to vary its 12 June order so that the whole Destruction Order was paused, and to direct that the dog live with him at his home, on the basis that the yard was secure, the dog could be safely managed there, the boarding costs were a burden, and he denied the alleged incidents. The council asked the tribunal to leave its order alone and keep the dog detained at the Animal Welfare League, pointing to the escalating incidents, the objects of the Act and public safety; it accepted the tribunal could revisit the order and said it might be willing to discuss the cost of detention with the owner separately, but it did not press that any pause could allow the dog to be kept somewhere not approved under the Act.

What the tribunal decided

The tribunal declined to vary its order of 12 June 2026. That order remains in force, which means the pause on destroying the dog continues, and the requirement that the dog be kept at the Animal Welfare League also continues while the review of the Destruction Order is decided.

This was an interlocutory decision, that is, an interim ruling made along the way rather than the final decision on whether the Destruction Order itself was correct. No money orders were made. The tribunal noted the council might be prepared to negotiate with the owner about the cost of the dog's detention, but said that was not a matter for the tribunal at that point.

Why the tribunal decided it that way

The tribunal began from the point that it is a creature of statute and does not have the broad inherent powers of a court. It can only make the orders the legislation allows, and cannot make orders on whatever terms it thinks fit. Its power to pause a decision it is reviewing comes from section 36(2) of the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2013, which lets it grant a stay of all or part of a reviewable decision if satisfied that it is just and reasonable to do so. Section 36(3) allows a stay to carry conditions and allows the tribunal to vary or revoke its own stay by a later order.

The tribunal accepted it was appropriate to at least consider changing the earlier order, because it did not appear the owner had been consulted before it was made and so he had not had a chance to argue that the whole of the Destruction Order should be paused. Having considered it, though, the tribunal found it had no power to do what the owner wanted. Section 50(2) of the Dog and Cat Management Act sets out what a Destruction Order must require: that the dog be destroyed within the period stated in the order, which cannot be less than a month after the order takes effect, and that until then the dog be kept or detained at a place specified in the order, or at some other place later approved by the council or the Dog and Cat Management Board. The owner's home had not been approved by either the council or the Board, so it was not a place the section allowed.

The tribunal also refused to pause the whole order. Doing that would have left no place specified at all for the dog to be kept or detained while the review was pending. The allegations about what the dog had done were serious and the facts had not yet been decided, and in the tribunal's view protecting the public meant the dog had to be kept at a place the Act contemplated until the matter was finally determined. The tribunal added that there was no evidence the dog was being harmed at the Animal Welfare League.

The tribunal recorded the disagreement about whether the dog was a "guard dog", and noted that section 45D of the Act deals with guard dogs, but said it did not need to resolve that dispute to decide the stay application.

What this means if you are in a similar position

If you are in a similar position, this decision shows two things about how these rules are applied. The first is that a tribunal reviewing a council decision works within the powers the legislation gives it. A pause on a decision can stop something from happening, but it does not let the tribunal write a different arrangement that the Act does not provide for. Here, the Act said a dog under a destruction order must be held at the place named in the order or at another place approved by the council or the Dog and Cat Management Board, so the request to have the dog held at home was not something the tribunal could grant, however secure the yard was said to be.

The second is where the decision about an alternative place actually sits. Under the section the tribunal applied, approval of another place is given by the council or the Board, not by the tribunal. That also explains why cost arguments did not get traction at this stage: the tribunal treated the cost of boarding as something for the parties to discuss, not something that changed what the Act required. Disputes about the underlying facts, such as whether a dog was involved in particular incidents or whether it counts as a guard dog, are generally for the final hearing of the review rather than an interim ruling.

In disputes with a council or similar body, the step most people take first is a clear written notice or request to the body itself, setting out what they want it to approve, change or reconsider and by when, before lodging any tribunal application. That written record is also what a tribunal application is usually built on if the matter does not resolve.

How to apply: our step-by-step guide to a SACAT application. More decisions: SACAT cases and other civil disputes.

Source: McCloy v City of Port Adelaide Enfield [2026] SACAT 61 (read the full decision). This summary was prepared from the published decision for general information. It is not legal advice, and the tribunal’s own reasons are the authoritative record.