No changes to dog ordinances forthcoming
The best line of defense for preventing dog attacks is vigilance, not new ordinances, city council members said.
On Tuesday, the council discussed how Newton handles pets, particularly dogs, in the wake of a pit bull attack Aug. 19 that sent Newton resident Cora Vander Heiden to the hospital. Ultimately the discussion favored owner responsibility coupled with vigilant neighbors who report dog owners that don’t follow
the rules.
Under its existing ordinance, the city requires dog and cat owners to immunize their pets, keep them from roaming at large and to license their pet annually. Failure to do so can lead to fines.
“Responsible people will take care of that matter, but there are a lot of people that don’t,” council member Steve Mullan said.
The police department sends out a letter to residents who fail to renew their pet licenses on an annual basis and can cite those who fail to comply with a municipal infraction. However, owners who have never registered their dogs are not accounted for in this system.
For animals in violation of city rules, the police department relies on citizens calling in reports of aggressive dogs or dogs running loose. Typically, Police Chief Jeff Hoebelheinrich said, dispatch will contact the Jasper County Animal Rescue League (JCARL) first to handle the problem before police are involved.
“We do expect the animal rescue league to take care of most of these,” he said.
In some situations, like the pit bull attack on Aug. 19, the police department does become involved, but most typical instances — like dogs running loose or a dog that snaps at someone — are handled by JCARL.
Beyond that, the city prohibits “vicious” dogs. Dogs can be deemed vicious in several ways: if they have two incidents of unprovoked chasing, snapping or barking at human beings or domestic animals in such a way that could potentially cause injury, or a single incident causing serious injury to a person, defined as “any breaking of the skin above the shoulders, or any injury at or below the shoulders causing heavy bleeding, damage beneath the skin, or stitches.”
A dog involved in such incidents can be deemed vicious at the discretion of the city administrator.
Newton does not have any breed-specific dog ordinances, though some communities do. Hoebelheinrich indicated that dispatch receives lots of calls about pit bulls in particular, but that upon investigation, the
animal is found to be a different breed or of a mixed breed. City Attorney Darrin Hamilton noted that other communities who have crafted breed-specific ordinances have faced legal hurdles to maintaining them.
“Most communities in Iowa that went that route did get challenged and spent time in court defending their ordinance,” Hamilton said. “Depending on how they crafted it, they were either successful or not successful.”
Council member Dennis Julius said adding new ordinances likely wasn’t the best course of action.
“You can make all the ordinances in the world but you can’t make owners responsible,” he said. “It’s a tough situation and an unfortunate situation. Again, I’m glad we brought it up to be discussed, but if we did ordinances, I don’t know that it would change anything.”
Mullan said owners need to be responsible for their own animals and that neighbors have an obligation to keep an eye out for aggressive dogs or dogs running loose and then either talking with the owners themselves or calling it in to the city.
“Public vigilance has to be a part of this,” he said. “We can’t do it ourselves.”
Mike Hansen agreed.
“There’s nothing wrong with being proactive in your neighborhood and helping everyone out,” he said. “It might be your child, your daughter or son” attacked next time.
Hamilton said that one positive development to come out of the recent attack was that the publicity has caused a large increase in the number of people bringing in pets for vaccinations.
“It’s disappointing that people don’t vaccinate their animals when they should,” he said. “It’s for the better health of the animal. It’s for the protection of their immediate family and the public at large, but at least — trying to find some silver lining to this particular tragedy —at least there are people taking their pets in for the proper shots.”
