Authorities mull vicious dog solution
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LAKE COUNTY — Residents and government authorities say some parts of Lake County are literally going to the dogs because of a network of non-uniform, unenforceable and lax laws that span jurisdictional boundaries.
While a string of animal control problems have intensified across the county in the past few months, a movement for multi-agency collaboration to create a system to crack down on vicious dogs has gained steam in recent weeks. But, some officials are doubtful any change will happen because similar meetings in the past have failed.
“It never gets done,” St. Ignatius City Councilmember Ray Frey said. “It’s always a two or three week thing and it’s gone ... but I think it should be the highest priority we’ve got.”
St. Ignatius eliminated a position for animal control officer in August 2013 so the town could shuffle funds to increase its police presence with an additional part-time officer. St. Ignatius Police Chief Jeffrey Ferguson had to take just under a month of medical leave after a March 11 call about a vicious pit bull turned into an attack that resulted in severe lacerations to his arm. The highly publicized attack put townspeople on edge.
“Now people are mistaking pit bulls for boxers and boxers for pit bulls,” Councilmember Annie Morigeau said. “Because we’ve been having these issues with pit bulls people might just start shooting dogs. It’s not okay.”
Mayor Charley Gariepy said the problem has gotten worse in recent weeks, with packs of unfamiliar dogs running down the streets of town.
St. Ignatius does not have a vicious dog ordinance of its own. The owner of the dog that bit Ferguson was cited under a county ordinance. The town does have rules in place to prosecute owners of dogs that are unlicensed or running amok.
Those ordinances aren’t applicable to tribal members, and that is why the town council is hesitant to blaze ahead and write its own ordinance.
“Unfortunately what you’re going to be able to do is a town ordinance,” City Attorney James Lapotka said. “It’s only going to be enforceable against half the people who live in our town. That has traditionally been a problem.”
“The best case scenario would be a county wide ordinance for Lake County that is also the same as a tribal ordinance that would apply to everyone,” Lapotka said. “Or if there was one dog ordinance that applied county wide, and if the Tribes would grant full faith in credit to town ordinances and enforce town ordinances or adopt them, it would make things infinitely better.”
The St. Ignatius Council favored collaborating with Ronan and Polson city councils to approach the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and county commissioners about updating the laws.
The Ronan City Council has said repeatedly in the past six months that it intends to meet with Tribal Council to discuss possible collaboration on a dog ordinance. Councilmember Cal Hardy planned to meet with the Tribes on April 14.
“We’d like to have some kind of coordinated ordinance,” Hardy said. Last fall former City Attorney Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson researched several options for writing a vicious dog ordinance that would create penalties for dog owners, while also giving dogs adequate due process to prevent unnecessary or inadvertent euthanasia of an innocent animal. Progress toward drafting those ordinances halted when Cole-Hodgkinson left the city attorney position in January, after four months on the job.
The city picked the issue up again in March and April, when police reported a “ton” of vicious dog calls and three attacks. In one of the attacks, a person tried to separate a dog that illegally entered the person’s yard and attacked another dog. The person ended up getting bitten. In another instance a dog climbed onto the porch of a duplex and bit a woman. The third attack was a pit bull that killed another animal, according to Ronan Police Chief John Mitchell.
Resident April Godwin first sounded the alarm about the dog problem during a Ronan City Council meeting last summer. She said several animals had been killed by vicious dogs in her neighborhood, but the police said the city’s ordinances were inadequate to do much to solve the problem. A half-year later, Godwin said the dogs are still wreaking havoc. Recently her family had to talk a dog owner into chaining their animal after it cornered her granddaughter on a porch.
“The dogs are running things,” Godwin said.
Ronan’s police chief agrees that the problem of vicious dogs is getting a bit out of hand.
“I think we probably are getting to where we have a dog issue, and the problem is that we just don’t have the resources to deal with it,” Mitchell said.
The best of rules
A uniform, county, municipal and reservation-wide dog ordinance sounds like an ideal solution in theory, but questions about practicality remain. Although both unincorporated and incorporated areas are experiencing vicious dog attacks, there are small nuanced differences in lifestyle that might not be favorable for a blanket rule. For instance, Ferguson suggested St. Ignatius have a leash law for its citizens.
Lake County Undersheriff Dan Yonkin said he doesn’t see that kind of law working in rural parts of the county where ranchers use dogs to herd livestock.
Different parts of laws and ordinances throughout the county also are more enforceable than others, Yonkin said.
Tribal law includes very broad language that allows for prosecution of owners in the event a dog bites, harasses, or chases any human being without provocation or harasses, chases, bites, or attempts to bite livestock or any domestic pet. Lake County’s ordinance isn’t as thorough. A person typically has to be bitten in order for a dog owner to be prosecuted by the county.
The county’s ordinance is also limited in that it doesn’t protect some yard animals like chickens. The birds are classified as fowl under state law.
“We don’t have chickens in Pablo,” Yonkin joked of his home neighborhood.
Flathead Tribal Police Chief Craige Couture pointed out a loophole in virtually all of the local agencies’ policies: there’s no rule against owning a vicious cat or other animals that are a more rare occurrence, but still occasionally have brushes with law enforcement.
There are other problems unlikely to be solved by a collaborative ordinance. There is no local pound where vicious animals can be euthanized, and shelters typically don’t accept animals with a history of attack on humans or other animals.
A quarantine process is required prior to euthanasia. It is expensive for cities to board dogs at local veterinarian offices for that long and there’s no guarantee the dog’s owner will take responsibility for those costs.
In Ronan, Mitchell said it has grown difficult to find a vet to take the animals. The city used to have kennels at the base of the town water tower where it could house strays and quarantine cases. A volunteer cared for the animals. Environmental regulators forced the city to tear the kennel down in recent years.
Those factors all come into play in the event a dog is caught and an owner claims responsibility for the animal. Authorities for all law enforcement agencies said it is sometimes difficult to get to that point because owners don’t want to admit to owning a vicious animal that has been caught.
“How can you prove that dog belongs to that person?” Couture asked.
With the fate of local ordinances up in the air, law enforcement had suggestions on how to minimize contact with vicious animals.
Mitchell reminded people to call police and not get in the middle of two fighting dogs. Yonkin said people should keep control of their animals. Ferguson encouraged raising the dogs in such a way that it would be less prone to attack.
Couture said people should call about vicious dogs even if they think chances of prosecution are low.
“Call it in, regardless,” Couture said. “It’s hard to document if people aren’t calling it in.”
