Omaha puts forth Dangerous Dog Ordinance

Omaha has brought forth their dangerous dog ordinance that will be open to public debate.  The ordinance was originally started in a committee consisting of 5 members of the Nebraska Humane Society, 2 members of the police force, one member of the city council, one person from the mayor's office and three other people. The committee submitted a proposed ordinance, that then the mayor and councilman Dan Welch have revised to including muzzling of pit bulls and a mandatory $100,000 insurance policy for pit bull owners.

Here's a copy of the new ordinance in its entirety.

The basics of the ordinance are these:

It creates a separate designation for dangerous and potentially dangerous dogs -- with the necessary restrictions for each.  

Specific requirements on how a dog can be tethered and for how long (no more than 15 minutes at  a time).

Any dog owner that violates animal control ordinances 3 times in 2 years will be forbidden to own a dog.

"Pit bulls" -- which are broadly defined as being American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers, Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Dogo Argentinos, Presa Canarios and Cane Corsos will have to be leashed and muzzled in public and carry a $100,000 insurance policy.

They plan to pay for the cost of the ordinance by instituting higher fees and higher fines.

I've already commented on most of these clauses here.  I still stand by this analysis.  I still predict that with all of the things they're proposing, that bites won't go down, but licensing rates will go down, shelter euthanasia will go up, and the cost to enforce will go up far more than they make up by raising fees.

The only new part of the ordinance is the $100,000 liability insurance -- which is such a silly measure because this will provide triple insurance coverage for most people as regular home owners insurance already covers your liability in case of a dog attack, and the person's individual health insurance also covers them.  Not sure how a 3rd form of insurance helps anyone other than insurance companies.

Councilman Jim Suttle opposes the breed specific part of the law and intends to submit an amendment to get rid of the breed specific language.

Meanwhile councilman Dan Welch thinks the breed specific nature of the ordinance is important.  "We have a duty to keep people safe," said Welch. 

This article also notes that many experts say that enforcing a breed specific law is difficult.  Welch acknowledges that he can't tell the difference but "The Humane Society will be enforcing this legislation and the Humane Society has people able to identify these animals. I'm not sure I can do it, but I think that there are people out there that certainly can."

However, it should be noted that because of the difficulty and cost of enforcement, the committee that had 5 members of the Humane Society on it recommended AGAINST Welch's recommendations.

I should note that public safety and listening to those in charge of implementing safet measures isn't one of Dan Welch's specialties.  Last summer, Welch commissioned a study (costing taxpayers around $300,000) that recommended cutting 36 police officers from the city's police force.  Apparently the police union and firefighters union have consistently campaigned against Welch because of his policies on "public safety" including efforts that have cut salary increases for the police force and cutting back on their pensions.  In spite of Welch's assertions that his cuts wouldn't affect overall public safety, it should be noted that the year prior to Welch's proposed cuts, Omaha's crime rate was 30% higher than the national average and they were above the national average in virtually every statisitcal category, including murders, rapes, aggrevated assaults, property crimes and vehicle thefts.

So let's just say that Welch's track record on public safety and listening to public safety officials hasn't really been a strong point for him. And paying $300,000 for the study doesn't exactly indicate he's been the most fiscally responsible either.  Yes, this is the type of person pushing for breed specific laws.

Hopefully the city council and the citizens will push the ordinance back to its original form submitted by the committee and get rid of the insurance clause and the breed specific laws. 

 

Comments

[MichelleD]

VOTE HIM OUT! Whichever way this turns out, the dog owners of Omaha need to team up with the police union and get Welch the hell out of there.

[Casey Martinez]

I sure hope the H.S. reinforces that they absolutely cannot accurately identify these dogs.

[Chris]

The good news is that Welch has announced that he will resign at the conclusion of his current term and not re-run for council. The bad news is that he is doing this in order to most likely pursue the Mayor position as Mayor Fahey has announced he will not seek another term. I have sent several emails to the city council, and Suttle is one of two that actually responded. Suttle is also planning on running for Mayor.

[Brent]

Casey, I can't agree more. I really hope they stand up and say that that is why they didn't propose it in the first place. Heck, I'd go so far as to tell them that they'll quit doing animal control if they pass the breed specific part. I highly doubt the city would try to recreate a shelter/animal control department from scratch for this...

[Carianne]

I am crossing my fingers this will not pass. It is like a wild fire with ill informed council members throughout the US.

On a side note, OH has a state wide law that requires folks to get extra insurance of $100,000 in liability if you own a pit bull type of dog. The great part of this is that the OH Insurance Exchange is the only well known insurance agency that provides this insurance. HMMM, does something seem fishy here???

[Hal Blevins]

Dog ordinance in Omaha.

Lets say you leave all speed limits up to 'carefull drivers', you shouldn't be required to wear a seat belt or shoulder strap in a car. Your child doesn't need to be strapped in a car seat, your a great driver. You don't need to carry liabity insurance you're a great driver you would never hit anyone.

Well, how's that working?

Yes the public must be protected from aggressive dogs.

All pet dogs should be neutered or spayed, all to have a microchip put under the skin to locate their owners when lost, and to ID if they are current on their shots. These pets should be required to have a: 'certified' 6'-0" leash, muzzle, and harness when out of the owners home and yard. They must have an owner who is the legal age in the state. They must show insurance with a minimu coverage of $250,000.

So far who is injured? Is the pet injured? Is the Owner injured? Is the public injured?

Now what breeds in Omaha have bitten people over the past 10 years. These breed must be considered 'potentially dangerous' and these breeds large or small must also provide the city licensing authorities information indicating where these pets are kept when not in the residence. Again who is injured. If a fenced in yard it must be reviewed personally by the authority so that they can prove that at child can not open the gate because the latch is high enough and that the fence or wall is high enough to keep the pet contained. Or if a total enclosure is required because the breed can jump over the 6'-0" maximum fence height allowed in Omaha.

You see the owners should be blamed for not wanting to take responsiblity of their own pet or their own liabilty.

And the unfortunate part is that the majority of the pit bull owners are the ones that won't follow the ordinances.
Why?

Case in point, my grand daughter's hospital bills todate are $130,000.00 who going to pay this? She has 3 to 4 more surgeries over the next 3 years. Who is going to pay for those? My daughter-in-law is in muscle and nerve therapy for who knows how long who is going to pay for this?

Do you think the pit bull fairy is just going to come down and make everything better?

There must be an ordinance to protect your children your family and mine.

You will hear tomorrow of (2) pitbulls attacking each other tonight. It was right behind my son's home. Great! Yes Charlottes back yard, with the 5 year old nephew of the 18 year old dog owner right there! Just gets better.

Yes I think the city should just sleep on any changes to the city dog ordinance like they have since this Mayor first took office and the 18 month old boy was neutered by the pit bull that lived in the same house with the boy. Yes that pit bull fairy is helping him out alot too.

The owners must force all pit bull owners to set a great example of goodness or your cause is lost.

Regards,

Hal Blevins
Grand father

[Caveat]

It sounds as though Hal's neighbourhood is full of negligent dog owners and that civic authorities are not addressing the problem properly, if at all.

What is the purpose of the neutering across the board, ie, what perceived effect would that have on the situation?

Of course you need leash laws, except in designated off-lead areas. You need cleanup laws, licensing compliance - I fully agree.

I don't see how this is connected to so-called 'pit bulls' but maybe I'm missing something here. It sounds more as though dog owners in the area are out of control, which would happen regardless of the breed or shape of the dogs they own.

I fully agree that the restrictions so casually placed on some dog owners would be more acceptable if applied to ALL dog owners but I don't expect to see that happen - and I'd still fight it because the security theatre of muzzling, etc, doesn't work to protect people from dog bites. Only education can achieve that.

By targeting a nicely propagandized minority of dog owners, politicians escape the wrath of the nearly 50% of households who own dogs. I doubt any of them has the guts to wake that sleeping giant. At present, many of these doltish dog owners believe the myths themselves and don't think their GSD, Am Cocker, Golden retriever, Labrador retriever, Husky type, etc is capable of biting anyone.

Thing is, in Canada nationally based on hospital and coroners' records, those are far and away the shapes responsible for most dog bites, attacks and fatal maulings.

Unfornately, anecdotes are not proof of anything, however horrible they may be. You cannot generalize an isolated incident and apply it to a population - especially one as large as the 'pit bull' type, the most popular kinds of dogs in the US. If you could, we'd have no need for science.

[MichelleD]

Hal, the person who owned the dog that attacked your daughter now has a chained German Sheppard in their front yard. Dogs that have been tested to have greater bite pressure than a Rottie or pit bull - see the NatGeo, Brady Barr experiment.

So why do you want to punish me and my innocent dog and let this woman get off without any consequence? SHE was the problem owner and continues to be - yet SHE will not face any of these restrictions. Would you only want her to pay for your bills when her pit bulls bites but not when her GSD bites? She already raised one vicsious dog, I'm sure she's raising another.

Ask yourself, do you want your family safe from all dogs or do just from pit bulls? Did you see the incident where the daushound mutilated the genitals of that baby? Point is, breed specific regulations have NEVER made any city safer, NEVER. And in fact, has the opposite effect in most places.

I feel for your situation, but punishing the innocent for the works of the guilty is not just, appropriate or beneficial in any way.

[MichelleD]

"Now what breeds in Omaha have bitten people over the past 10 years. "

OK, I just read this again. Apparently Hal wants restrictions on all breeds. But the same problem remains, you're spending a lot of TIME and TAX PAYER MONEY on non-problematic dogs. You can be proactive and put laws in place to get at potentially dangerous dogs/dog owners without using resources on people/pets that aren't problems. Resources are limited, a blanket law that effects 50% of the households in Omaha just isn't feasible.

There are PROVEN programs that work to keep cities safe. At the end of the day its about proper enforcement. You can have all the laws you want but they don't enforce themselves.

[Brent]

Hal,

After a pretty lengthy email discussion with you today, I won't hash out all of your points here. We can definitely continue the conversation in private though.

I'll just say that I do agree with you that we DO need to make better efforts to protect the public. Dogs are a minor threat in the overall scheme of things, but they can be a problem in some areas. There are many places across the country that have seen success in how they've created and enforced ordinances that have truly improved public safety. I think, for the most part, the NHS emulated a lot of these "best practices" in their ordinance. I certainly think there are pieces of the ordinance that should be improved, but overall the thoughts were coming from places that have actually seen success. The stuff brought in by the politicians (the breed specific language, muzzling, insurance) is all political whack, whack that have never had success in any place, ever.

I think we all want the same things here. I would want nothing more to have nothing to blog about because all people were safe from dogs and all dogs were safe from people. There is a right way and a wrong way to do these things. And creating laws we >think< might work is not the right way -- not when there are plenty of examples of places that are actually doing this right.

[Editor]

I have been bitten three times by dogs - a German Sheppard, a Chow and a Cocker Spaniel. One, I admit, was my fault. In none of these cases did I blame the breed of the dog. We would be limiting our thinking by banning or creating an ordinance which is breed specific. Unfortunately pit bulls have been used as dangerously trained pawns in some peoples' sick humor for entertainment/money. Until our efforts go to hunting down these types of people/organizations that entertain themselves in dog fighting, we might have to suffer the consequences as a community and adhered to breed specific laws until some peoples' treatment of animals is changed. Hopefully we can get more state funds allocated to investigating and cracking down on these dog fighting rings so that the unfortunate dogs do not fall into situations where they hurt people. Im not saying that all dogs that hurt people come from dog fighting rings. Some pet owners simply do not provide an ideal environment for their pets. It all boils down to humans...what are we doing as a society to respect the environment and the animals that live in them?