DOG ORDINANCE

Reader unhappy with new law

On July 30th I wrote a letter to the City Manager and City Council of Moses Lake, asking that they repeal the Hazardous Dog Ordinance 2426 of 2008 for these reasons:

1. I believe it is not the breed that gives a dog a "propensity, tendency or disposition to attack." (Does this resemble ‘racial profiling'?) Most dogs will defend their owners, and most dogs that are trained to attack will do so, regardless of breed. Likewise, most dogs, including those breeds specified in the ordinance, are gentle if treated gently.

2. To require that any dog be caged in the owner's yard, when that dog has never threatened or harmed anyone, is tantamount to our attacking the dog without provocation.

3. Likewise, to require that a so-called ‘hazardous dog' who has never threatened or harmed anyone be muzzled, when in public, is to assume the worst. Yet no similar restraint and banishment are required for people who abuse their dogs in order to teach them to attack.

4. The ordinance requires that the owner pay for a proper cage, neutering/spaying and liability insurance then lay out $150 to register his ‘hazardous dog'. Why create an entire bureaucracy to control unlikely threats then erect obstacles to compliance?

It seems that the first definition of a ‘hazardous dog' must be that the dog has harmed badly and absolutely without provocation; secondly, that all breeds or mixtures of breeds be included; thirdly, that the ‘guilty' animal be removed from its owner and transferred for rehabilitation or humane separation from the public (not muzzling and caging); and finally, that the owner be forbidden to ever again own another animal. Let's put responsibility where it belongs.

I respect the Council, but this ordinance 2426 is offensive and anti-productive. Please repeal it.

Thank you.

Susan Blackwell

Moses Lake