The city’s Animal Control Review Board heard statistics on dog bite cases within the city and a presentation on breed-specific legislation Monday during its second meeting of the summer.
The board is tasked with reviewing the city’s animal control ordinances and presenting the city council with suggestions of possible changes. City Manager Todd Thompson has said the board will meet three or four times during the summer.
On Monday, the ten-member panel received information about the potential downsides of breed-specific legislation – laws that ban or call for restrictions on dogs only of certain breeds.
Tiffany McBee, a volunteer at Pit Bull Rescue Central Inc., in Fulton and the founder of pit bull rescue group Broken Hearts, Mended Souls Rescue, told board members that breed-specific legislation enacted in other cities is both costly and ineffective because it doesn’t anticipate future attacks involving other, non-regulated breeds.
“BSL usually comes up because there’s an incident in the community and there’s an outcry for ‘something terrible has happened, let’s put a Band-Aid on it,’” she said. “That is how we view BSL, it’s a Band-Aid. After time passes and things heal, you get right back into the same situation.”
McBee suggested the board instead recommend a system of increased fines similar to those in the Canadian city of Calgary to encourage dog owners to have their dogs spayed or neutered and to confine and control the animals to prevent bite incidents.
During the meeting’s public comment session, landlord Ralph Mika said he has evicted four people from his properties in the last four months because they owned pit bulls or Rottweilers.
Mika said state laws regulating landlord liability insurance allow insurance companies to deny coverage for incidents on landlords’ properties involving 11 breeds of dogs. He said he thinks the city should consider enacting breed-specific legislation because he believes some breeds are more aggressive than others.
“As a property owner, I am obligated to not have these eleven breeds of dogs or combinations thereof [on his properties],” he said. “Dogs are different and different breeds are different. In this discussion, I think there has to be discussion about control of certain types of animals and certain types of breeds versus others.”
Mika said he had provided a copy of his liability insurance agreement to the city manager, who is a member of the board. He also indicated that he had given several documents in support of breed-specific legislation to Mayor Ron Loesch, also a board member, but the information was not distributed to other board members.
“We didn’t get the copies made,” Loesch said.
The board also heard reports from two of its members. Audrain City-County Health Unit nurse Brandi Meyer presented statistics on animal bite cases in the city and veterinarian Richard Schmidtke spoke to the board about animal behavior.
At the board’s meeting last month, Meyer had presented statistics on dog bite cases in Audrain County throughout the last five years. On Monday, Meyer presented detailed numbers that showed how many of those cases involved vaccinated or unvaccinated cats and dogs and which breeds were involved in the incidents.
Citing the information packet the board received from McBee, Schmidtke said that any animal has the potential to bite a human or another animal. He said controlling a dog is the responsibility of the owner.
Schmidtke also talked about what he called the “Big Dog-Little Dog Syndrome.” He said dogs may assert their alpha status by attacking smaller dogs.
“The dog is naturally a hunter and will take chase,” he said. “If he feels like he’s the alpha figure and he takes off after the little dog, there usually isn’t much left of the little dog.”
According to a proposed schedule of the board’s activities for each of its four meetings, the board will next discuss legal issues and prosecutions involving the animal control ordinances and will also talk about suggestions for changes to the ordinance.
Board members agreed to meet again at 11 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 23 in City Council Chambers on the third floor of City Hall.
The agenda posted in City Hall had said Monday’s meeting was to be held in the second floor conference room in City Hall, but the meeting was moved to the City Council Chambers on the third floor shortly before it began.
Mexico, Mo. —
