Oh my Omaha

So, mayor Mike Fahey revealed his new dangerous dog proposal today that will be heard by the city council.  I certainly have a lot of questions about the proposal (many of them falling in the "What are you thinking?" category). 

From the get-go, I've had many of the same concerns that the American Pit Bull Rescue Association brought out last week. I think that creating a closed door committee with no public input and without a lot of representation from various groups is asking for a lot of problems and certainly goes against the democratic process.  At least the mayor chose a decent group of experts for the committee (with 5 of the members being from the Nebraska Humane Society). 

However, a lot of the rules that were proposed certainly don't sound like things that would have been proposed by a panel of experts to me. I'm really curious how much of this ordinance was proposed by the committee (the Committee's proposal has not been made public), and how much was created by Mayor Fahey. I certainly hope that information is made available to the public.

Before I comment further, here's an overview of the mayor's proposal.

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Cruelty to Animals

Anti-Tethering - No dog can be tethered in excess of 15 minutes at any one time unless a trolly system is used. Tethering on a trolly system cannot exceed one hour.

Potentially Dangerous Animals

The Nebraska Humane Society would be able to declare an animal "potentially dangerous" if it unprovoked a) injures a human in a way that does not require medical treatment, b) injures a domestic animal, c) chases a person on streets, sidewalks or any public grounds in a menacing fashion or d) or has a known propensity or dispostioin to attack or threaten the safety of humans or domestic animals.  Any animal declared "potentially dangerous" will have to be spayed or neutered, microchipped, leashed, muzzled when on leash and the owner is required to attend ownership education courses.

Reckless Owners

Any dog owner convicted of breaking rules in Chapter 6 on three separate occassions is deemed a reckless owner and must surrender all pets and the is prohibited from owning a pet for 2 years.

Pit Bulls

Can only be permitted outdoors if it is confined in a securely fenced yard or if the animal is on a leash, controlled by someone 19 years of age or older and muzzled.  "Pit Bull" is defined as "American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Dogo Argentina, Presa Canario or Cane Corso, or any dog displaying the majority of physical traits of any one or more of the mentioned breeds.

Records

To increase licensing requirements, animal dealers are required to provide animal control the records of the dates of sale, identification and sex of each pet sold and the name of the purchaser of the each pet sold.

Fees

In order to cover the increased costs of enforcing these laws(estimated at over half a million dollars), licensing fees will increase from $15 to $25 in 2011. Cat licensing fees wil go up from $12 to $15.

In tact dogs/cats will go from $30 to $50.

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I will say this, if THIS is the proposal that came back from the committee, featuring 5 members of the Nebraska Humane Society, I say, good luck with that. This is going to be a nightmare if this goes through as proposed.  And every single dog owner in the city should be very concerned. 

Let me first start with the good. The Reckless Owner clause. While I think they're time table is too short (my experience is that these types of cases have a way of dragging their heals a bit and getting 3 convinctions in two years is not going to happen a lot), by and large this clause is actually taking a step to deal with the real issue in these cases - -which are the irresponsible owners.  This one actually makes sense and makes an effort to deal with the problem.  Bravo.

Now the bad. The potentially dangerous animals clause. I like parts of this one. I like the ability for responsible animal control departments to be able to enforce restrictions on animals based on their behavior, even before they bite someone.  I have quite a few reservations for the wording on this one though.  Here are a couple of suggesstions for making this piece actually pretty strong:

1) Make exceptions for a dog on its own property.  As the law currently reads, if the neighbor's cat comes into your back yard, and your dog attacks the cat (remember your dog is completely contained in your back yard, minding his own business), your dog can be declared a dangerous dog under this ordinance as it currently reads.

2) I'd have a clause that required the dog to have a temperament evalutation given by NHS prior to being declared potentially dangerous. As this reads, your dog could over-exuberantly jump up on someone, scratch them (injury that does not require medical treatment) and be declared potentially dangerous.  Have a temperament evaluation so that we can use common sense over which types of animals should be declared potentially dangerous.

3) Waive the mandatory spay/neuter of "potentially dangerous dogs" pending the outcome of #4 on my list.

4) If, once the dog and its owner attend the responsible ownership training course, the dog then passes all of the necessary behavior tests to be declared no longer dangerous, then the dog should no longer be designated as potentially dangerous and should no longer have restrictions. Remember, the goal here is to encourage (although this law is written to threaten) responsible ownership. If an owner changes their behavior and their dog's behavior, then the desired outcome is met. They should be rewarded accordingly with no more sanctions (plus, at that point, they're unnecessary).

Cruelty to Animals

Let me be the first to say that I favor laws that restrict the amount of time a dog can be tethered -- but this one is obnoxious.  Let's talk about tethering for a bit. One of the big reasons I am not in favor of tethering is because it is unsafe-- both for the dog and for others. So, if your dog is on a tether, and another dog comes up to it to attack it, it cannot run, it must fight to survive. This would be true if the dog felt threatened by a toddler also.  Prolonged tethering can, in my opinion based on a lot of observation, lead to an animal becoming territorial.  However, if a person is with the animal, and the animal is tethered, then the human can protect the animal from anything that might threaten it (or that it might hurt). 

Here's where I think the tethered animals get into trouble. Many times animals that are tethered as their primary or sole source of containment have several issues. 1) They become territorial. 2) They get frustrated trying to get out and about to play with kids playing in the neighborhood, or with other animals, and the prolonged frustration leads to anger and 3) a good many of these dogs never get exercised because they're always on a 6 foot chain.  So you get an under exercised, frustrated, territorial dog. This isn't something that happens in 20 minutes.  It's something that happens over a prolonged period of time. A trolly system has no effect at all on the situation.  15 minutes is an obnoxiously oppressive ordinance. Change the wording to all dogs should "supervised" while chained up and you have an ordinance that is easier to enforce and practical.

Leash and Muzzle Requirements fo Pit Bulls

I'll be stunned if the committee came back with this recommendation. If they did, shame on you guys.  For starters, if you have the "potentially dangerous dog" ordinance that is proposed above, the only animals that are covered in this ordinance are 'pit bulls' (or in this case, 6 different breeds of dogs and thousands upon thousands of mixed breed dogs), that would otherwise not be any threat at all to society. If they are at all a threat, they get covered in the generic potentially dangerous dog law. If they are not a threat, why do we care? 

Here's the deal with the leash and muzzling. First off, the leash part is ignorant as Omaha already has a leash law that requires dogs to be on leash, so it's redundant.  And anyone who proposes a muzzling ordinance clearly hasn't the foggiest notion about canine behavior. Muzzles are not good for dogs. Many restrict heavy breathing (which can be a detriment to proper exercise). Additionally, muzzles make dogs very anxious around other dogs. The only way that a dog can defend itself is by using its teeth. So they become anxious around other dogs because they know they have no way to defend themselves if the other dog attacks them. So muzzling actually encourages dogs to become undersocialized....the exact OPPOSITE behavior that you'd want from owners. 

So in addition to being impossible to enforce because of the diffiulty in determining what type of dogs so many of these mixed breed dogs are, you're actually encouraging owners to have under-socialized, under-exercised dogs. So you're in essence creating problem dogs that weren't a problem prior to the ordinance. BRILLIANT!  Most dog attacks are not committed by leashed dogs out on their daily walk. While the one in Omaha was that started this whole craziness was, it isn't even close to a statistical majority of major attacks.

Fees

Ugh. I like dog licensing. I really do. I think it really enables shelters to be better equipped to get stray animals back to their original owners vs killing them in the shelters. In Calgary, over 50% of the dogs that come into their system are returned to their homes because of their high licensing rates.  Berkeley, CA was able to achieve similar success with their RTO (return to owner) numbers. Calgary was able to build high licensing rates by providing excellent public service to pet owners and thus, increase their licensing rates. By doubling the cost of licensing dogs, I would almost guarantee that they will achieve lower licensing rates, which will lead to higher kill rates, which will add to the costs of this ordinance.  I actually expect this to have the exact opposite effect it was supposed to have in increasing money for enforcement.

My hope is certainly that after hearing from more voices than just the 12 people on the committee that the city council and the mayor will improve this ordinance.  Otherwise, this is going to be quite the mess is Omaha.

Comments

[Chris]

Great points Brent. I think its defintely good that for the majority they went towards a non-breed specific ordinance, but they definitely need to rework some areas for easier enforcement and to reward responsible ownership. I also thought the redundancy of leashing a pit bull was laughable. I'm not sure if you saw this updated article at the World-Herald, but the president of the NEHS and one of the city councilman both are quoted with skepticism towards the muzzling requirement.
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10407069

[Sue Cosby]

Wow.

Prior to my career in animal shelters, I worked for a wonderful dog training school with an impeccable reputation. In order for the owners to interact safely with both hands, and to discourage confusing leash corrections, the dogs were "tethered" to a wall by the owner's side in the training center for the duration of the class which was ... much longer than 15 minutes.

When I bring my Siberian Husky with me to a friend's house for the evening and we spend the night on lounge chairs in the (not fenced in) back yard at a bbq, you can be certain ... she will be tethered for the entire evening! Well fed but... tethered for her safety. If she wasn't she would be longgg gone.

You are absolutely right that it's not the length of time but the purpose and regularity of the tethering. It's common sense and it sadly seems quite difficult to write laws that take common sense into consideration. That would be the conundrum.

[Becky]

Excellent post, Brent. You have addressed ALL the significant weaknesses and failures (and good points) of this proposition. It's important that we know all this and try passing it on, educating as many as possible, because this crap keeps popping up all over the place!

[Chrissy]

""Pit Bull" is defined as "American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Dogo Argentina, Presa Canario or Cane Corso, or any dog displaying the majority of physical traits of any one or more of the mentioned breeds."
Ugh I'm so sick and tired of hearing/reading that! That is such a broad and ignorant "classification", it annoys me to see that written into Legislation!
I totally agree with you on your points of concern! Especially the vicious dog part!! Makes no sense, in our state someone walking by is now permitted to shoot someone in the act of any crime. But my dogs can't protect their house, home, and family? Whatever!

[Becky]

'But my dogs can't protect their house, home, and family? Whatever!'

Chrissy, this concerns me also. I understand that humans are to strive to be good, strong leaders for our dogs, so that they are 'relieved' of this obligation.

Still, it is a dog's nature to protect his home and territory. It is believed to be one of the main reasons we formed a bond with dogs in the first place!

It is very disturbing that rather than target crime, violence, exploitation of animals, and some peoples' general disregard for the well being and safety of other humans and their own animals, our legislators would rather choose to go after our dogs, seeking to destroy their very nature, under threat of destroying them.

A lot of us would die, protecting our dogs. A lot of our dogs would die, protecting us (uh, don't know about mine.....) To me, this bond is to be cherished and protected, not destroyed because of a bunch of stupid yahoos who should not be permitted to own animals in the first place!