Saturday, Feb. 02, 2013

Raleigh leaders to mull dangerous dog rules

City leaders will get a report Tuesday highlighting whether Raleigh’s rules on dangerous dogs have enough teeth to protect residents.

The report from city attorneys comes eight months after a neighborhood off North Raleigh Boulevard complained of a series of dog attacks that left pets and people injured. Neighbors say the city’s current rules – less punitive than the county’s ordinances in some respects – leave them vulnerable to the area’s vicious dogs.

Sue Sturgis, a member of the East Citizens Advisory Council, said the group formed a committee last week to recommend solutions. “We plan to read the city staff’s report and then decide on next steps,” she said. “We do intend to communicate our satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction with the report’s recommendations to city officials.”

Raleigh City Council members voiced interest in revising the rules when the complaints were on the agenda last June. But since then, there’s been little further discussion on the issue.

As things stand now, Wake County’s law is both more specific and more punitive than city ordinance.

For example, owners of dangerous dogs that bite humans in the county’s jurisdiction are fined $500 for the first offense, with the dog euthanized after a 10-day waiting period for possible appeal. Owners of dogs who attack other animals get a smaller fine.

In the city, when a dog bites another domestic animal or a person, the fine is up to $500 for a criminal violation, with civil penalties from $50 to $250. The city also prohibits public nuisance animals, which include dogs repeatedly found off-leash or “vicious” animals that repeatedly attack. But vicious dogs can be kept for personal protection as long as they are securely confined.

Teresa Washburn’s chihuahua was among those attacked last year, and she said the larger dog’s owner was never penalized. “All of us hope that a growing, progressive city like Raleigh can do better,” she wrote in an email to city council members. “Please enact a real law with real authority to back it up. Please don’t put this issue on the back burner or let it get lost under a stack of papers.”