By Zaria Nabinett
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
UPPER MARLBORO, Md. – The Prince George’s County Council’s efforts to make sweeping changes to the animal ordinance moved closer to reality Thursday.
The Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy, and Environment Committee listened to proposed changes to a bill that would update the ordinance, which has not been revised in 20 years, but then decided to delay action. The administration of County Executive Angela Alsobrooks introduced the bill last week that included a proposal to outlaw the chaining of dogs outdoors and to require owners to pay for implanting electronic microchips if pets are picked up by Animal Services before they are returned home.
Joseph Gill, director of the Department of Environment, and Rodney Taylor, associate director of the Prince George’s County Animal Services Division, urged council members to reconsider certain changes that are being proposed but applauded other revisions. They represented the American Kennel Club.
The ordinance recently proposed the prohibition of chaining dogs outside, especially in extremely hot or cold weather. Besides being cruel, Taylor also noted the psychological and emotional abuse animals endure from their owners.
“People sometimes don’t understand” the cruelty of chaining dogs outside in 90-degree weather, Taylor said, “but that’s a very serious thing for animals. We’ve seen situations where we have owners actually tie animals up to dining room tables, don’t feed them, starve them, or just threatening and hitting them all the time, so they coward down. There’s a whole emotional piece that comes with that.”
The bill redefines “dangerous animals” and includes the owner’s treatment of the dog and training techniques. Such violations by the owner would be considered a criminal offense.
“For years, it’s always been the animal, but most of these issues we’re talking about are owner issues, not animal issues,” Taylor said.
Another change would be that animal control would have the right to confront the pet owner, make him or her correct certain behaviors or appear in court to defend his or her behavior, if the animal inflicts injury upon an individual, another animal or is picked up twice within a 12-month period.
Taylor said that under current law, the owners “can pay their fines and it can be three or four times a year, but they get to take their animal home, then we have to petition the commission. We want to be proactive now.”
“What we’ve seen quite a few times in Prince George’s County is that we’re dealing with the same owners over and over again,” he said. “We’re trying to put a stop to that.”
The Office of Audits and Investigation said, “the county receives nearly 7,000 complaints a year about animals or animal-related issues.”
Council Chair Deni Taveras, Vice Chair Monique Anderson-Walker and members Thomas Dernoga, Dannielle Glaros and Todd Turner all agreed to move the proposal forward.
However, Virginia May, a constituent of Glaros and a member of the Animal Control Commission 12 years, expressed concerns about the number of members in charge of facilitating animal offenses. When animal control complaints are filed, she said that often the commission doesn’t have enough people to adequately handle the complaints.
“One of our problems right now, is that we lack members,” May said. “We should’ve had nine voting members but at the present time there’s only five. However, with some of the cases, three people are just not enough to make a good decision.
“I just feel that you don’t have enough opinions with only three people there, and especially, having two people on the commission who are not animal knowledgeable,” she said, explaining that just a day ago the commission had four cases to decide whether or not a dog was vicious. “They are there because they have a job with the county and the law says they have to be there.”
Dernoga agreed, “We need a greater variety of opinions on a particular case than just three people, and we particularly need to have somebody who knows a lot about cats!”
“No one knows anything about cats,” said Dernoga as the meeting erupted into laughter.
Despite her concerns, May commended the council for giving the time to discuss an issue that she described as personable and relatable to all people and their pets.
“I am so glad this new code is moving forward now,” May proudly said. “The commission worked on this for a long time, calling other groups, looking at what legal groups had, everything we could do to improve what was happening in Prince George’s but then it just sort of went dormant for quite a while.”
Amendments to the animal control ordinance also included breed-specific laws, mandatory sterilizations, and other factors regarding animal abuse. Such changes would decrease the population of stray cats and dogs that roam the county’s streets, officials said.
“We’ve been trapping feral cats and euthanizing feral cats for a long time and the population is steadily growing,” said Taylor. “I would say this is certainly a step in the right direction because now you’re starting to deal with the population growth. Standard neutering slows the growth down and it’s proven and factual.”
Gill stressed that “these are amendments to the animal code that have been years in development and we’re hoping to get across the ‘go’ line.”
The committee is expected to take action on Thursday, Oct. 10.