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NV-Gibbons approves bill restricting chaining of dogs

Vicki

Administrator
Gibbons approves bill restricting chaining of dogs

By Mark Robison
mostlydogs@rgj.com

Gov. Jim Gibbons signed a bill Wednesday limiting the amount of time people can leave a dog chained to 14 hours a day and requiring at least 12 feet of movement for the animal.

"I'm satisfied with it," said Karen Goodman, a Reno resident who three years ago saw a neighbor's dog abandoned 24 hours a day, seven days a week in a pen. "But, I would have preferred it was at nine hours or less.
"I mean, 14 hours is still a long time, especially in the heat that Southern Nevada experiences and the cold that Northern Nevada experiences. It can be very harmful to a dog."

Since starting her campaign for a new law, Goodman said Nevadans and people from across the country contacted her with stories about dogs abandoned on chains or in pens, asking what they could do because there were no laws empowering animal control officers.

"It was very hard to live with," Goodman said of the captive dog. "It affects your quality of life. It affects your insides when you hear a dog crying all the time and knowing she doesn't have any human contact at all. She was suffering, and I was suffering as a result of that."

Karen Layne, president of the all-volunteer Las Vegas Valley Humane Society, said excessive tethering and penning of dogs is a frequent occurrence in Southern Nevada.

"We get calls in the summertime when it's more than 110 degrees, and people have come home from work, and the dog is dead or the dog is having seizures, and the dog is nonresponsive," she said. "When you hear that time and time again, it makes you a little angry."

Layne said before 1987, police in Nevada would walk away from a husband beating a wife because it was considered a civil matter and not their business. But the law was changed, so arrests were made even if the victim couldn't or wouldn't testify.

"That was a paradigm shift in the way domestic violence was treated in Nevada," Layne said. "I hope this bill will be a paradigm shift for the way animals are treated. It's not OK to leave your animal in the sun or beat your animal just because it's your animal."

Mitch Schneider interim manager Washoe County Regional Animal Services said the legislation likely will decrease calls for animal control officers asked to make several trips to the same place for animal welfare checks.
"This is especially cruel because dogs are pack animals," Schneider said. "With this law, we'll be able to explain this is why what they're doing is illegal, this is why it's not in the best interest of the animal, and here are some alternatives.

"For 98 percent of people, this is all they need. About 2 percent, we have to take enforcement action against. We'll apply a reasonable person approach to this."~

http://www.rgj.com/article/20090528...ns+approves+bill+restricting+chaining+of+dogs
 

Zoom

Well-Known Member
And yet who do you think will be the first on the line calling for the imprisonment for those "evil dog fighters" because they no longer have the tools needed to properly keep their dogs and they end up with a bloody tangle? :rolleyes: :(