KG Korner page 4

Dog Owners and the Law

By Annetta Cheek

This country is witnessing a worrisome trend of local and State legislation restricting the rights of animal owners. While many of you are aware of “BSL”–breed-specific legislation-- probably few of you have thought about other owners’ rights issues:

• breed discrimination in homeowners or renters insurance,
• mandatory spay/neuter requirements,
• limits on the number or size of dogs you may own,
• cropping and docking bans,
• “guardianship” laws,
• restrictions on bite-work, and
• data privacy.

This is the first of several articles addressing these issues. I can’t give you a list of the communities affected by each problem—there’s not enough time in my life to do the research necessary for that. My goal is to make DVG members aware of these troubling trends, and hopefully to motivate all of you to prepare for these legal issues should they become a problem in your area.
In this first article, I’ll focus on mandatory spay/neuter requirements and guardianship laws. Both of these initiatives are brought to you by the animal rights movement.

Mandatory spay/neuter requirements:

Take a look at this model statute the animal rights people are recommending:
http://www.instituteforanimalrightslaw.org/statute_mandatory_spay-neuter.htm

This model statute would set up a mandatory spay/neuter program in any community that adopted it. The only exception to the requirement in this model would be if a veterinarian says the animal is not healthy enough for the operation. It provides that failure to comply with spay/neuter requirements should be a violation of the jurisdiction’s criminal provisions. It also provides that owners failing to comply with the statute will have their animals seized and given to the local shelter for adoption (spayed or neutered, of course).

Here are a few of the legislative actions on this issue in 2006. I do not know the outcome of the actions that were pending when I wrote this article:

1. The Tacoma City Council considered a proposal to require all dogs to be spayed or neutered unless their owner bought a $55 intact animal license and a breeder’s license. An owner would have to pay the fee for the breeder’s license, even if he didn’t intend to breed. The measure would also amend the existing city law to allow those with intact animals to only own two dogs. Residents with spayed/neutered animals would be able to own up to six. Finally, the proposal would require that any dog picked up by animal control be spayed or neutered before their owner could get them back.
2. The Indianapolis City - County Council considered a proposal that would require all animals to be spayed or neutered and would require all dogs and cats to be micro- chipped. The proposed mandatory spay/neuter ordinance would require all animals to be spayed or neutered unless the animal is a "show, breeder, law enforcement, service or competition animal or crime prevention dog." There are no definitions in the ordinance for show, breeder or competition animals. http://www.akc.org/news/index.cfm?article_id=3017
3. Supervisors in Sacramento County are considering an ordinance that will impose a $200 intact animal fee and a $50 intact animal fee for "show dogs." To qualify for the $50 fee owners would have to be members of a breed or kennel cub, prove that each animal is registered with a recognized registry, and compete in two show events each year.
4. Los Angeles approved an ordinance requiring all dogs, except those that are law enforcement dogs, service dogs or that qualify as "competition" dogs to be spayed or neutered. Dog owners wishing to breed or simply keep an intact dog will have to pay a $60 fee for each dog and meet a host of restrictive criteria.
The measure requires all dogs, whether sterilized or intact, to be micro-chipped and increases the fee to license a sterilized animal from $15 to $20. A first violation will result in a fine not to exceed $250 and a second violation is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in county jail or a fine up to $1,000, or both.
To be eligible for an unaltered dog license, a dog must be a law enforcement dog, a qualified service or assistance animal or a "competition dog." A "competition dog" must be registered with the AKC, UKC, ADBA or other valid registry approved by the Animal Care and Control department. Competition dogs must also meet one of the following requirements:
• The dog has competed in at least one dog show or sporting competition in the past year.
• The dog has earned a conformation, obedience, agility, carting, herding, protection, rally, sporting, working or other title from a purebred registry as recognized by Los Angeles County Animal Care and Control.
• The owner is a member of a purebred dog breed club, approved by the county which maintains and enforces a code of ethics that includes restrictions from breeding dogs with genetic defects and life threatening health problems that commonly threaten the breed.
Breeders must notify the Los Angeles animal control department within thirty days of a litter being whelped and must provide the name, address and telephone number of the new owner. The department can revoke or deny your license if the department receives even one sworn complaint, if you have been cited for any violation of a state or local animal control law, or if your dog is deemed dangerous.
I’m sure I don’t have to explain how these provisions impact your rights. You can imagine what would happen if a disgruntled neighbor swore out a complaint against you. You can see how much this would further erode our already diminished rights to privacy and our property rights over our dogs. This brings us to the second issue, guardianship.

“Guardianship” laws:

Animal rights activists are attempting in various communities to have the relationship between you and your dog changed from one of ownership to one of guardianship. As one group in San Francisco said, “In doing this, our ultimate goal is to elevate the status of animals from that of property to that of individuals with needs and rights of their own. Our immediate goal is to expand on existing laws to recognize a respectful relationship between two individuals of differing species, rather than maintaining the tyranny of an ‘owner’ over ‘property’.” Michael Mountain of the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary wrote, "People of other genders, races and even age groups were once treated as property in this country. Now, it is time for 'people' of other species to be accorded the same simple dignity of being recognized, not as someone else's property but as beings in their own right." Now I know we all love our dogs, and sometimes we treat them like people, but the idea of their having the same legal rights as a person is more than a bit scary to me.
Animal guardianship establishes a dangerous legal situation. Using the word "guardian" instead of "owner" allows animal rights activists to have your dog taken away. In brief, guardians have much fewer legal rights than owners. As a guardian, you are under public scrutiny, and anyone can petition a court to remove you as guardian, based on any criteria they see fit. It's up to a court, as well as your defense, to show otherwise. If you don't show up to court, you naturally lose the case, and the dog.
The Council of State Governments has adopted a policy declaring that this initiative of the animal rights movement, threatens the legal balance between enforcement of anticruelty laws and granting animals the same or similar rights as people. This policy states that:
"Guardianship statutes would undermine the protective care that owners can provide for their animals and the freedom of choice owners now are free to exercise, and could permit third parties to petition courts for custody of a pet, livestock, or animal for which they do not approve of the husbandry practices."
Despite this and other opposition, several communities have already agreed to change their statutes to include a guardianship designation:

Location / Date

Santa Clara, CA April, 2006
Bloomington, IN January, 2006
St. Louis, MO August 9, 2004
Albany, CA June 7, 2004
Wanaque, NJ May 13, 2004
Woodstock, NY February 10, 2004
Marin County, CA December, 2003
Sebastopol, CA December, 2003
San Francisco, CA January 13, 2003
Amherst, MA April 24, 2002
Menomonee Falls, WI March 11, 2002
Sherwood, AR September 24, 2001
State of Rhode Island July 5, 2001
West Hollywood, CA February 19. 2001
Berkeley, CA February 27, 2001
Boulder, CO July 12, 2000

What should you do?

To defend yourself and your dogs against these trends—and the others I’ll discuss in future articles—you need to stay vigilant in your own community. Exercise your right to be heard and to vote. Bad dog laws start locally. Get to know your local legislators now--before you have a problem. Visit them early and often. Let them know you are a dog owner, and that you expect the elected officials you vote for to protect your property rights. In the last article in this series, I’ll go into more detail about what you can and should do. Meanwhile, you might visit the website of the Dog Federation of Wisconsin, and read the information they have on their legislative pages (http://www.dfow.org/legis.htm).