ohmidog!

A three dog per homeowner limit went into effect this week in Fayetteville, N.C. — a city that seems to just keep getting more heavy-handed when it comes to dogs.

Effective Sunday, in the city that recently sent hired hands to round up strays, dead or alive, homeowners in single family residences are allowed to legally keep three dogs; while apartment renters are limited to two.

And in an effort to crack down on the thousands of local residents who don’t register their dogs, the city has also worked out an arrangement with veterinarians, authorizing them to issue city licenses when pet owners bring their dogs in for vaccinations. That takes effect Jan. 1.

The measures are designed to make the rules in Fayetteville the same as they are in surrounding Cumberland County, the Fayetteville Observer reports.

Dr. John Lauby, director of Cumberland County Animal Control, which also handles animal control for the city, said his department doesn’t plan to go door to door counting dogs, but it will respond to complaints from citizens about residents harboring too many dogs.

There are no cats limits in Fayetteville, or Cumberland County.

Officials hope the more stringent rules will cut down on complaints involving barking and loose dogs, as well as unsanitary yards where dogs are kept.

Fayetteville residents who previously had more than three dogs can keep them, assuming they are up to date on on the pet fees they pay on their property tax bills.

The county has about 39,000 licensed dogs and cats and, it estimates, about 30,000 non-registered ones.

The county is sending letters to those scofflaws, he said.

“We want to be proactive in preventing the spread of rabies from the wild animal population to humans,” he said.

The license fee is $7 per dog or cat if it has been spayed or neutered; $25 if not.

Those discovered illegally harboring more than the allowable number of pets will be fined $100 for a first offense and given a “reasonable amount of time” to find new homes for the excess dogs.

We’ve got an ASPCA, and a HSUS, but what we need is an ADLU.

The American Doggie Liberties Union — if it existed — would fight all forms of doggie discrimination, both subtle forms and blatant ones, like this:

A Long Island dog park is charging visitors to its “big dog” play area up to $13 per visit on summer weekends, while visitors to the “small dog” play area pay nothing.

At West Hills, in Suffolk County, the fee is charged those who visit between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

“I feel sorry for them,” small-dog owner Michael Price is quoted as saying in this piece by NBC in New York. “But I am here in the small-dog park and very happy about that.”

Dana Richter was not. “I am unemployed,” Richter said. “I just can’t keep dropping money around every corner. Yet my dog needs exercise.”

Some big-dog owners, like Lisa LaMorte of Huntington Station, have written county lawmakers, asking for a reduction in the fee. But with Suffolk County facing budget problems, she may be out of luck.

According to Suffolk County officials, the higher fee for big dogs wasn’t intended as a penalty. It’s a result of  the “big dog” park being located in an area with parking and other amenities. “The fee structure that exists precedes the establishment of the dog park,” said county spokesperson Vanessa Baird-Streeter.

Baird-Streeter said anyone wishing to bring their big dogs to the park will not incur a fee Monday through Friday and prior to 8 a.m. and after 4 p.m. on weekends.

But big  dog owners lamented scaling back their visits. “This is the best dog park on Long Island,” said Laura Lerner, as she held her retriever Maki. “I come here every day …”

The big dog park is designated for dogs over 25 pounds.

James and Melissa Lecker moved to the Wisconsin town of Wausau three months ago, along with their two children, two 13-year-old golden retrievers, their 1-year-old Yorkie, and a 3-year-old shih tzu.

In Wausau, that’s two dogs too many.

While the town is letting them keep the children (it hasn’t sought to limit those), it’s insisting the Leckers get rid of two of their dogs, or get out of town.

James, 29, a website developer for Midwest Communications, and Melissa, 32, who works in social services, moved to Wausau from Stevens Point for job reasons in January, and bought a house.

They were unaware that local law prohibits residents from having more than two dogs — and they didn’t learn that was the case until a police officer mistakenly stopped at their house while investigating another matter.

They’ve requested an exception from the city and been told there’s no chance of that.

So now they’ll be leaving, even though they expect to lose $15,000 on their home.

“I couldn’t sleep for a week. I’m not eating; there’s just so much stress,” Melissa Lecker told the Green Bay Press Gazette. “I know that sounds kind of crazy, but I either have to get rid of two family members or lose $15,000, and either way it’s stressful.”

City officials say the ordinance was passed in 1989 to curb animal nuisance complaints, and there seems little interest on their part in either changing the law, or granting exceptions. The law also limits pet owners to three three cats, three rabbits or three gerbils.

(We can only guess that’s to cut down on nuisance gerbil complaints.)

Jim Brezinski, the city council member whose district includes the Leckers’ home, said he doesn’t plan to intervene and that the issue should “go through the appropriate channels.”

But there aren’t really any channels to go through.

“Our current ordinance doesn’t allow for a variance,” Wausau city attorney Anne Jacobson told WAOW.com.

Lisa Rasmussen, chairwoman of Public Health and Safety, said she opposes increasing the number of allowable dogs, Fox News reported.

“I hope we can work something out,” Melissa Lecker said. “But they are just being so mean. My dogs didn’t bother anyone.”

A petition on Change.org, supporting an exception for the Leckers, says the family went before Wausau’s Public Health and Safety Committee to request a one-time variance that would allow them to keep all four of their dogs long enough for the two eldest ones to die, but that the committee denied the Lecker’s request.

“Now, because the Leckers innocently opened their door to accommodate a police officer who stopped by the family’s property accidentally, they are in danger of having to pay a $300 fine for each day that all of their dogs, their family members, remain in their home … a daily fine that could add up to more than $9,000 in a given month … fines they will face simply because they love their pets, or, as Wausau sees it, too many of their pets,” the petition says.

(Photo: Green Bay Press Gazette)

Professional dog walkers in San Francisco would need to acquire permits, and possibly face limits on how many dogs they can walk at a time, under legislation being considered by the Board of Supervisors.

For years, city officials have been considering regulating the dog-walking industry, mainly because of concerns about people walking too many dogs and failing to adequately control or clean up after them, the San Francisco Examiner reports.

New regulations on the industry, proposed by Supervisor Scott Wiener, were heard yesterday by a committee of the Board of Supervisors.

The legislation calls for, among other things, limiting to seven the number of dogs that one dogwalker could walk at a time.

Some dog walkers say that would prohibit them from making a good living.

Under Wiener’s proposal, a permit would cost $250 for the first year and $100 a year after that. Violations of the law would result in fines of up to $500.

The full board of supervisors is expected to vote on the legislation as early as January.

The regulations would go into effect in October, 2012.

It’s not the outright ban some were hoping for, but the Forsyth County Commissioners last night approved limiting the practice of chaining or tethering dogs.

The board, by a 4-3 vote, approved an amendment to the North Carolina county’s animal-control ordinance that will make it illegal to tether a dog in such a way as to harm the animal.

The limits won’t go into effect for two years, to allow for a period of public education, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.  

The county’s animal-control advisory board had recommended a total ban on tethering.

Sunny’s first offense was growing.

Being a Rottweiller-mastiff mix, he — as  you’d expect — quickly surpassed the 100-pound mark, well over the weight limit imposed at the Florida apartment complex where his owner, Denise Wilkinson, lived.

She started searching for a new home for him, but, unable to find one by the landlord’s deadline, dropped him off at Pinellas County Animal Services, with plans to pick him back up when she found one.

On its website, the county said dogs are kept seven days there. In person, they told her 48 hours. In reality, they euthanized him before a day had passed.

When Wilkinson, a day after dropping him off, went to pick up her dog, she found out Sunny had been euthanized — within hours of being dropped off.

“He wasn’t sick; he wasn’t old. He still had a long life ahead of him,” Wilkinson told Tampa Bay Online.

Senior Animal Control Officer John Hohenstern said Sunny was aggressive and caused concerns about the safety of shelter workers. “It was determined that because of the aggression in the dog it was not an adoption candidate,” he said. “We couldn’t do anything with the dog.”

Hohenstern  said that, despite the wording on the website, Wilkinson had initialed a paper stating she understood that the surrender was is unconditional: “Pinellas County Animal Services makes no promise, actual or implied, regarding holding time, treatment, adoption or disposition of this animal.” Hohenstern said the document initialed by Wilkinson superseded the website.

The county, Tampa Bay Online reports, has since changed the language on the website.

Hohenstern said with more animals being surrendered, possibly because of the economy, the animal control office encourages people to consider other options before dropping a dog there. “We try to … let them know this is kind of their last resort,” Hohenstern said. “They don’t want to do this.”

In our eighth month of bouncing about this expansive and expensive country, Ace and I seemed headed for our most frugal stretch yet – thanks mainly to lucking out and finding some free housing upon our return to Baltimore.

For the first time, in our continuing effort to see America while spending less than what we were while sedentary and housed – about $1,500 for rent, food and utilities – we were looking at a three digit number instead of four.

Now, thanks to my stupidity, and with an assist from Verizon, we’ve blown it, and somebody has some explaining to do.

Before we left on our journey, I canceled my home Internet service (through Verizon) and signed up for wireless mobile broadband (through a different part of Verizon), allowing us to get online no matter where we were for $59 a month – the package they suggested for a heavy user.

It worked pretty great. There were only two or three locations in our 22,000 miles of travels, where service was non-existent or spotty.

I was so pleased, I even eventually sent Verizon the payment they were seeking from me for home Internet service for the month following the date I moved out of my house. It was basically a choice between paying the money I didn’t really owe, being regularly harassed by the credit agency to which they turned the matter over, or spending far too much time on the phone, holding and then some, to try and straighten it out.

All was going smoothly with my wireless mobile broadband — or so I thought until last week, when Verizon informed me that for the past two months I’d gone over monthly limit, and that I owed them more than $400. Read more »

According to the old saying — at least as old as Shakespeare — every dog has his day. 

In California they just got an extra one.

Interpreting a regulation that sets the “holding period” for a stray dog impounded in a public or private animal shelter at “six business days” (or, if certain exceptions apply, “four business days”), a state appeals court in San Francisco has ruled that Saturdays don’t count as business days.

The ruling  was the first to interpret a 1998 California law that increased the holding periods for public and private shelters, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The ruling will affect Contra Costa County Animal Services and all other counties and cities with similar policies.

The case goes back to 2006, when a miniature pinscher named Duke, was impounded at a county shelter in Pinole on a Thursday. The shelter held the dog until the following Wednesday, when another person took him. Duke’s owner, Veena Purifoy, went to the shelter the next day the following to find him gone.

She sued both the county and the new owner, who relinquished Duke in a settlement, Evans said. The suit against the county challenged its claim that the shelter had held the dog for the required four business days.

Overturning a judge’s ruling in the county’s favor, the appeals court said the state law did not define business days but was intended to increase holding periods from the pre-1998 law, which required a 72-hour hold.

Excluding Saturday as a business day serves “the legislative goal of access, because longer holding periods will often provide more opportunities for redemption and adoption,” Justice Martin Jenkins said in the 3-0 ruling.

(Photo from Cafepress.com)

Delaware Bay beaches in Lower Township, New Jersey may soon see more restrictive dog rules.

The Lower Township Council is reviewing regulations after an increase in complaints about dogs running loose and poop going unscooped. Dogs are currently allowed on the beaches, but must be leashed, and law requires that owners clean up after them.

Both sides spoke out on the issue at at Monday’s Lower Township council meeting, the Press of Atlantic City reported.

“I pay $8,000 a year in taxes to the township, and I have to go down to Cape May and buy beach badges because there are no dogs on their beaches. I shouldn’t have to sit on the beach and watch a dog take a dump right in front of me,” said Bill Conners, of Shore Road.

Bill Greenfield, a Villas resident and dog owner, took exception to the remark: “I think you’re painting dog owners with a pretty broad brush. A lot of people are responsible. Dog owners pay taxes, too,” Greenfield said.

With dogs off limit along many Atlantic coast beaches, many pet owners head to the bay. A recent Philadelphia Magazine identified the township’s Town Bank area as a good place to bring dogs to the beach.

“I don’t think this is a distinction Lower Township really wants. We’re known as dog beach,” said Conners. “I ask you to please enforce some laws or pass some laws that don’t allow these dogs to run wild on the beach.”

Some council members said the problem could be handled by enforcing existing rules, but others said stricter measures are needed, such as time restrictions.

No action was taken but the situation will be monitored in the coming weeks.

A Chicago alderman wants to limit Chicagoans to five dogs per household.

Alderman Ray Suarez, having reined in 27 co-sponsors, introduced his legislation Wednesday — designed, he said, to reduce sanitation and odor problems, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

“Neighbors have been complaining about the unsavory sanitary conditions,” Suarez said. “It stinks. It’s terrible. They don’t pick up after their dogs. Their backyards are loaded with dog waste. We have to call Animal Control, the Department of Streets and Sanitation, the Board of Health. You have to take ‘em to court. It’s just not right.”

Actually (opinion alert) we’d argue that it is, and that there is a system in place — as he notes — for dealing with problems. Some people can handle six dogs. Some can’t handle one. But rather than deal with cases as they arise, here’s another city, yet again, as with pit bull legislation, setting arbitrary rules and limits based on what irresponsible people might do, as opposed to what responsible people (pun alert) do do (end pun, end opinion).

Over the years, aldermen have repeatedly called for a three-dog limit, only to be shot down by Mayor Daley. At Wednesday’s meeting, Suarez said he proposed a five-dog ceiling to ease opposition from dog owners, who have tended to mobilize when a three-dog limit is proposed.

“We’ll try and we’ll discuss it,” Suarez said. “If it doesn’t pass, it doesn’t pass. But, I wanted to bring it up.”