Will Stamford ban ‘unattended’ tethering of dogs?
STAMFORD — Should the city make it illegal to leave a dog tied up outdoors without someone also outside with the animal?
That’s what the Board of Representatives will soon have to consider.
According to the proposed change to the city’s ordinances, the person, however, would be able to step inside and let the dog out of their sight in order to deal with a “temporary task.”
The proposal, which passed unanimously after
discussion by the Legislative and Rules Committee, is expected to be heard by the full board Tuesday. If the board adopts final language, it will go to Mayor David Martin for his signature.
The proposal comes from Rep. Jonathan Jacobson, D-12, a member of the board’s Legislative and Rules Committee. Jacobson said he believes that adding the new language to the city’s Code of Ordinances would make Stamford “the first municipality in the state of Connecticut, if not New England, to prohibit unattended tethering of our dogs.”
Right now, Stamford’s code prohibits anyone from tethering a dog “for an unreasonable amount of time” and refers to a part of state law that uses similar language. But the law doesn’t define what an “unreasonable” amount of time is, which makes enforcement difficult, said Officer Tilford Cobb, the manager of Stamford Animal Control.
Under Jacobson’s proposal, the city would prohibit the tethering of a dog “unless the owner or keeper is outside with the dog and the dog is in the owner’s or keeper’s view.”
The new language “would make things a lot clearer,” Cobb told the Committee during a meeting last week.
Dogs that spend long amounts of time tethered outside often don’t get the socialization they need and become anxious, Cobb said. It’s common to see them pacing, he said, or digging holes because they’re bored.
“It’s sad. These dogs become stressed and they become aggressive and often become protective of the property,” Cobb said. “A dog's instinct is to fight or to run. If you take away the ability to run, that dog learns to fight — whether it's a coyote entering your yard or a child.”
The proposed change has the backing of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which wrote a letter in support.
“Hundreds of jurisdictions across the country recognize the dangerous consequences of chaining dogs and have put commonsense laws in place to mitigate these risks,” wrote Daphna
Nachminovitch, the senior vice president of PETA’s cruelty investigations department. “Many of those areas have found that the simplest, most enforceable ordinance is a ban on unattended tethering.”
The American Kennel Club also weighed in on the proposal. Stacey Ober, a legislative analyst for the organization, said at the meeting that tethering “is sometimes used as a method of confining dogs in those conditions which may otherwise endanger them or … permit them to stray.”
Turning to the language under consideration, Ober said “it may not be necessary or practical for an owner to be outside and have the dog in view at all times.”
Board members voiced concern that the language lacked an exception for quick tasks.
“We cannot penalize dog owners who are responsible, good people because they went inside to get a glass of water while they were cutting the grass or trimming the hedges or whatever it is,” said Rep. Gary Palomba, R-16.
Jacobson proposed creating an exception to allow someone to “complete a temporary task that requires the dog to be restrained for a reasonable period of time,” saying he took the language from San Jose’s code. The committee approved Jacobson’s amendment.
But Rep. J. R. McMullen, R-18, questioned how the language would make enforcement easier.
“A temporary task I might do is go to Costco and get my tires rotated. That'll take two hours. Is that a reasonable amount of time?” McMullen said. “I guess that a lot of the people here would think not, but it's not defined. It's no more better defined than the ‘unreasonable amount of time’ for tethering. So I don't see how this fixes anything.”
McMullen also said that the new requirement would hurt those who can’t afford to install an invisible or physical fence in their yard.
The effort to change the city’s tethering ordinances began late last year after Jacobson read an article about a Virginia law that generally bars tethering a dog outdoors when temperatures are 85 degrees or hotter, or 32 degrees or colder.
Jacobson said the article prompted him to take a look at what Connecticut law and Stamford’s ordinances said about tethering.
The city’s ordinances prohibit people from tethering dogs “for more than 15 minutes when a weather advisory and warning has been issued or extreme conditions will pose a risk to such dog.” State law includes a similar provision.
Jacobson said that, in his view, the current laws are “woefully inadequate.”
Initially, he proposed adding language to the city’s ordinances that was nearly identical to Virginia’s laws and based on temperature.
But the AKC pushed back. Ober wrote to the Legislative and Rules Committee saying that factors like breed, age and health affect a dog’s ability to handle weather.
“What is ideal for a Chihuahua is very different than the needs and tolerances of a Saint Bernard,” she wrote.
And while language referring to specific temperatures may be “easy to enforce,” she wrote, “such guidelines inadvertently put some dogs at risk.
“It could legalize temperatures that a dog may not be able to tolerate even for a short period of time, yet an owner could believe it is safe since the law would allow it,” Ober wrote.
Eventually, Jacobson’s proposal focused on an owner being outside and the dog being in view — with the language based on the code of Norfolk, Va.
“It's not to ban the practice altogether, at least not yet, but it's to say that if you're going to tether your dog outside, you should be out there with the dog,” Jacobson said.
“And going back to my original proposal with the weather,” he added, “I think it's safe to say that if you're going to be outside in the freezing temperature or the sweltering heat with the dog, you don't need those minimum requirements because it's going to be entrusted to the owner that if it's good enough for the owner or the keeper, it's good enough for the dog.”
“It's not to ban the practice altogether, at least not yet, but it's to say that if you're going to tether your dog outside, you should be out there with the dog,”
Rep. Jonathan Jacobson, D-12, a member of the board’s Legislative and Rules Committee