Springfield residents shared stories of encounters with roaming dogs in the city’s neighborhoods at Monday night’s Springfield City Council meeting. Council is considering changes to Springfield’s animal ordinance. Proposed improvements to the code include raising fees for having a dog running loose and creating and a more efficient and graduated process to increase the consequences for repeat offenders.
"All pet owners in our community are required to have a rabies vaccine," said Springfield-Greene County Health Department Director Katie Towns. And they are required to have their dog on a leash when they are in public. Those are two basic things and they seem very simple, but oftentimes that pet on a leash can become a little bit hard for the community to stay on top of."
Currently, the minimum fine for a dog running loose is $10. The updated code would raise that to $50. Dogs must also display a rabies tag showing that they've been vaccinated.
Towns hopes the proposed changes will lead to greater compliance.
Several city residents told council members of constantly worrying for their safety because of loose animals. Anna Grove said she had been attacked and injured by a dog as a teenager. She said her neighbor’s 14-year-old dog had been killed by a dog that was allowed to run loose. Another dog killed her cat.
"Once again, our current enforcement tools proved completely inadequate to permanently remove those dangerous animals," said Grove. "This proposed ordinance finally introduces real legal teeth by eliminating the absurd, absurd alternatives to euthanasia for legally verified vicious dogs."
Another resident, Amanda Black, said she’s worked with animals in different capacities in Springfield for a long time.
"I've worked for years at the emergency vet clinic where I've seen dogs and cats ripped apart by loose dogs and their devastated owners," she said. "These people are put in huge financial binds because they cannot treat them without payment up front, and they are not often prepared for that financial burden."
The proposed changes would give animal control officers more authority. ACO’s are not commissioned peace officers and don’t have the authority to require compliance when issuing citations or conducting investigations. The new law would require individuals to provide personally identifiable information when an ACO believes they have violated Chapter 18.
"We have resistance whenever people are in a situation where the animal control officer asks for valid ID or who is the pet owner, we receive resistance," said Towns, "and so we're trying to overcome some of these challenges."
She said they have eight officers who serve more than 300,000 people and 130,000 households "so the resources are stretched."
She believes the new animal shelter that's set to open sometime this year will help. That new facility will nearly double the capacity of the current shelter and will allow them to take more dogs off the streets and hold them as needed.
"A lot of times, you know, we have situations where we encounter — where there is a dog bite and perhaps we don't have any room in the facility to quarantine that dog. And so now we will have the additional capacity to make sure that we have safety controlled in the community with that additional capacity from the shelter," said Towns.
City officials have said the purpose of the proposed changes is to increase neighborhood safety.
