- April 24, 2024
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The day the County Commission was due to consider an anti-animal cruelty ordinance amendment that would ban people from leaving their dogs tethered outside unattended, an American Kennel Club representative and a handful of others emailed county commissioners to oppose the ordinance. One email supported the ordinance.
A.K.C. Government Relations Regional Manager Patty Van Sicklen, in an emailed letter to commissioners, laid out a series of concerns about the particulars of the proposed county ordinance amendment, including the tethering restrictions, which, she wrote, “do not consider humane and necessary use of tethers.”
The commission was scheduled to consider the proposed ordinance amendment, which is supported by the Flagler Humane Society, at its Aug. 19 meeting. In order to consider the matters raised in the emails, commissioners opted to delay their vote on the issue until the meeting scheduled for 5 p.m. Sept. 16. No members of the public addressed the commission about the issue during the Aug. 19 meeting.
The proposed county ordinance amendment states that “the unsupervised, unattended outdoor tethering of a dog is prohibited,” whether inside fenced enclosures or not, unless the dog is within sight of the owner or another responsible person who is outside with the dog. In addition, puppies under 6 months old may not be tethered at all under the ordinance, “unless the owner is present and attending to the puppy during the entire time the puppy is tethered.”
An issue paper attached to Van Sicklen’s email gives examples of what the A.K.C. considers humane tethering: using a tether to confine an “escape-artist” dog to a fenced yard when the owner is gone for work for the day, provided the dog has access to shade, shelter and water; using a tether to tie out a dog in neighborhoods where fences are prohibited or are not permitted to be tall enough to safely contain a dog; using a tether to confine a dog during a camping trip; or tethering “hunting dogs, field trial dogs, and dogs properly conditioned to be humanely tethered outdoors in conjunction with training, hunting, and events.”
Flagler Humane Society Executive Director Amy Carotenuto said such cases aren’t the sort that come to the attention of the county’s animal control officers.
“Those cases are so few and far between,” she said. “What we’re talking about is dogs that live on chains, never get off of chains.”
A few months ago, a chained Palm Coast dog died of heat stroke, she said.
Carotenuto has herself pulled dead dogs off of chains, like one that had been left in a fenced yard on a chain that was just long enough to let the dog climb over the top of the fence, but not for it to make it to the other side. That dog was strangled to death by its own collar.
And, Carotenuto said, “Chained dogs are much more likely to bite. ... They become very territorial of that little piece of earth that’s theirs, and then when someone comes up — even to pet them, but they don’t know that — they feel threatened. They can’t get away, so it’s a the fight-or-flight thing. That’s how people get hurt.”
Van Sicklen’s letter also enumerates three other concerns about the ordinance:
Carotenuto said Van Sicklen’s letter makes a valid point about veterinary health certificates. But she did not agree with Van Sicklen’s concerns about the provision on continuous watering.
“I’m a lot more worried about protecting animals from heat stroke and dehydration than I am of the very, very rare cases in which a veterinarian has said to take water away,” Carotenuto said. The county could, Carotenuto suggested, add an exception for cases in which a person can prove that a veterinarian has recommended that an animal not have water.
The proposed ordinance amendment would also prohibit animal cruelty and neglect and strengthen enforcement mechanisms against irresponsible or abusive pet owners.
The current county code does not ban animal cruelty and neglect.
“Currently, these are not prohibited by County Ordinance and are only addressed through criminal prosecution or through a petition to the court to obtain an order deeming an owner unfit to possess animals and remanding custody of animals to the Humane Society,” a county meeting backup document states. “Animal Services encounters many situations that do not rise to the level of criminal neglect or to the level where an owner should be forever barred from care or custody of animals, but nevertheless merit consequence. Today’s ordinance will give Animal Services tools to address these cases through civil citations.”
The proposed amendment to the county code of ordinances also bans owners from letting their animals run at large, and it creates a civil citation enforcement mechanism for violations.
