Owners of unregistered dogs in the Bay of Plenty could face a $300 visit from the Bay's animal services teams in the next few weeks as they look to crackdown on slack owners.

Dog owners could be issued with a costly visit from animal services teams if they don't register their dogs in the next few weeks.

The deadline for current 2013/14 registrations passed on August 1, and dog owners are being forced to pay an additional 50 per cent for dogs registered since that date.

Dogs are required to be registered each year, with the registration year running from July 1 to June 30 the following year. Any dog over the age of three months must be registered.

Sunlive reported last week a rise in compliance for discounted rates with Tauranga City Council recording an increase of 300 registrations, jumping from 9000 to 9363, while the Western Bay is also slightly ahead from 12 months ago.

Western Bay of Plenty District Council animal services team leader Andrew Hope is pleased with the good response from people who registered their dogs by the cut-off date.

As of August 2, 7225 registrations had been completed of the total 8184 dogs on the council books in the Western Bay.

'This is an 88.28 per cent registration – of which 1182 dogs were registered under council's new online registration system introduced this year,” says Andrew.

But 954 dogs remain unregistered and it is those which animal services staff have started looking for. Tauranga City Council staff will also begin chasing up about 1100 unregistered dogs.

Andrew says staff will be visiting all properties in the district where the dogs are recorded as residing. Unregistered dogs can be seized and impounded by animal service staff and the owners could face a $300 fine.

Western Bay has extended its opening hours at its dog pounds in Te Puke and Katikati to increase exercise time for the impounded dogs, and making it more convenient for owners to collect their dogs.

The pounds are open during the week from 9-10am and 4-5pm. Tauranga's pound is open from 3.15pm to 4.30pm weekdays.