New Pet Ordinance Requires Elmore Co. Dog Owners to Contain Pets
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A new pet ordinance is in place in Elmore County. Dog owners must keep their pets leashed, fenced or contained in some way. But how will the sheriff’s office enforce it? We sat down with county officials to find out.
We took a drive through Elmore County to see how many dogs were running loose. We only saw one, but some Elmore County residents tell us dangerous animals have been a problem.
“A few dogs around where I live, if it sees a car or a bike, it’ll chase it, and twice-a dog down the road from me has been hit,” said Hunter Stanley, who lives in Elmore County.
“There’s been such an outcry of citizens about animals, neighbors’ animals, coming over to their property and biting or killing their animals or intimidating their families,” said Commission Chairman David Bowen.
In February in Tallassee, a 4-year-old girl was killed in a dog attack. County Commission Chairman David Bowen says the tragedy shocked everyone.
“This was something that had been talked about before all that happened. This was something that gave fuel to the movement of getting it passed.”
Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin says there are a lot of misconceptions about the law.
“We’re not going around there picking up dogs just to pick up dogs. We go out when there’s something specific and there’s a complaint and somebody saying, can you please come help us,” he said.
Franklin says that will help get aggressive and potentially dangerous dogs off the streets, if neighbors think they pose a serious threat.
“What we were operating under, if a dog we had a problem with went to an individual’s home, we had to seek out and get a court order to extract that dog from that owners’ land if we knew he was involved in something,” he said. He says this law will speed up that process and might lead dog owners to make sure their pets are secure.
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