A Christchurch City Councillor says there'd be considerable support from Councillors if they were asked to remove bolt guns from the pound.

Jamie Gough is the Deputy Chair of the Council's Regulatory Committee overseeing Dog Control.

He says he'd always assumed lethal injections were used in the city pound.

Mr Gough has only just found out bolt guns have been used for the last 45 years in Christchurch's pound and he says it's deplorable.

Five days ago an online petition was started asking the Invercargill City Council to stop using bolt guns.

It now has almost 7000 signatures.

Gough said so far, Christchurch residents haven't raised the issue as they have in Invercargill.

"If there's public will for that, then we work for the public and it's our job to ensure that we make those changes, so I'd be starter for that because I just don't agree with the current practice."

He insists he's only just become aware that the Christchurch pound uses bolt guns.

"Just because it's been done for a very long time, I don't think it means that it's right. It seems like a terribly inhumane way to put an animal down."

Personally, he said, he'd like to see lethal injections used instead.

"I just find it absolutely disgusting. There's no nice way to put an animal down but I think a lethal injection is the only way to go in 2017."