Your Roundup I'm Listening, by Tom Garrett
Can this possibly be true?
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29 June 2009 at 12:34 p.m.
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Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…
I have to tell you, I was more than a little shocked by the letter in the Letters to the Editor written by Kathleen Kelly about her encounter with four dogs, one of which bit her.
I'll just quote a couple of things:
“Last week I was attacked by a pack of dogs. An animal control officer took a report. The dog owner was not asked to show proof of rabies shots for his four dogs, nor was he cited.”
“Because I could not identify which of the four Australian Shepherds bit me, even though they all snapped and jumped on me, the officer decided not to quarantine any of the dogs. It would be unfair to punish all the dogs for one dog’s indiscretion.”
“He said that it is the nature of the breed to herd and bite at the cattle’s legs to control them. It was all about appreciating the unique character of the dog.”
“The dog owner was not asked to show proof of rabies shots…?”
“…unfair to punish all the dogs for one dog’s indiscretion…?”
“…the nature of the breed to herd and bite..?”
“…all about appreciating the unique character of the dog…?”
No proof of rabies shots required; incredible!
What about the “punishment” of the person who was bit? What is she to do? Start getting painful and dangerous rabies shots?
Does it excuse owners who fail to control their dogs because it is the nature of dogs to bite? If that's our attitude we don't need animal control officers. Just let the dogs do what they do.
What about appreciating the “unique character” of a human being?
I still can't believe what I read. If it is true, and the “animal control officer” is employed by Payson, then someone needs to investigate — and right now! And if it happened the way it was written some action needs to be taken!
29 June 2009 at 4:01 p.m.
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fred_franz (frederick franz) says…
It seems to be apparent that the dogs were unleashed if they all attacked at once.
What happened to enforcing the leash law? If I were bitten by these dogs I would be suing the
dog owner and the town for not enforcing the leash law!
-Fred
30 June 2009 at 9:55 a.m.
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Ruby_Finney (Ruby Finney) says…
To borrow a phrase from Lucille Ball, “Can you “Splain” to me ” why the community leadership in most areas of the United States seem to forget that the primary duty of local town government is to provide police and fire protection for it's citizens? This seems to be just one more example of the public safety departments deciding on priorities. Is it because of budget concerns? Or is it something like current traffic control measures? (like setting speed zones according to how fast traffic moves rather than what is a safe speed for conditions)
It turns my stomach to read about Oakland California with one of the highest crime rates in the country being told to reduce their police force by 20% while increasing spending on social programs and San Francisco cutting the Fire Department by 10% including stations closed, in a city with one of the most dangerous fire problems in the west while adding a $7 million monkey house on the zoo.
Unless the citizens begin to step up and insist that priorities be established according to needs, don't look for things to get better! Looks like it is time for Joe the Plumber to get into action and “splain” to the local council what he wants done. I think it's time to go back to the days of Town Hall Meetings similar to those still held in the New England States. The ball is in your court,voters!
30 June 2009 at 12:08 p.m.
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Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…
Ruby,
You said a mouthful!
It troubles me that cities sometimes seem to just float, losing contact with what's really important. Yeah, I know. Things like zoos are important too, but there have to be priorities. Some things fall into the “nice but not necessary” category. And too many social programs are pushed by the people running the programs, who sometimes seem to forget that while their program may add another level of service to a community, it may also be shaving down the level of service in more critical areas.
I like your idea about the opportunity for more citizen participation too. Thank God we have recall, referendum, and initiative here in Arizona. And thank God the system isn't rigged so that people can't get an initiative on the ballot, as seems to be the problem up where you are.
Did you know that the feds refused to grant Arizona statehood until recall, referendum, and initiative were deleted from the proposed AZ Constitution? They took it out all right, but as soon as statehood was granted they put it back in.
I'd like to see recall, referendum, and initiative at the federal level. It would do a lot to release the grip of politicians on Washington, and hence on this nation.
30 June 2009 at 12:13 p.m.
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Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…
Fred,
As usal, you're spang on target!
I did a little research of AZ statutes concerning control of animals. Look at what I came up with.
Re: “Last week I was attacked by a pack of dogs. An animal control officer took a report. The dog owner was not asked to show proof of rabies shots for his four dogs, nor was he cited.”
If the animal control officer did not require that the dog owner show proof of vaccination, why wasn't he in violation of the statute requiring that unvaccinated biting dogs be quarantined?
11-1014. Biting Animals; Reporting; Handling & Destruction
A. An unvaccinated dog or cat that bites any person shall be confined and quarantined in a county pound, or, upon request of and at the expense of the owner, at a veterinary hospital for a period of not less than ten days. The quarantine period shall start on the day of the bite incident. If the day of the bite is not known, the quarantine period shall start on the first day of impoundment. A dog properly vaccinated pursuant to this article that bites any person may be confined and quarantined at the home of the owner or wherever the dog is harbored and maintained with the consent of and in a manner prescribed by the county enforcement agent.
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Re: “[The animal control officer] said that it is the nature of the breed to herd and bite at the cattle’s legs to control them. It was all about appreciating the unique character of the dog.”
By “unique character of the dog” it appears that the animal control officer is describing a dog breed with a “propensity to attack.”
11-1001. Definitions
16. “Vicious animal” means any animal of the order carnivora that has a propensity to attack, to cause injury to or to otherwise endanger the safety of human beings without provocation, or that has been so declared after a hearing before a justice of the peace or a city magistrate.
––––—
If I were Kathleen Kelly I would google “dogbite” and contact a lawyer to determine whether the dog owner is subject to both civil and criminal prosecution for not controlling vicious dogs.
13-1208. Assault; Vicious Animals; Classification; Exception
A. A person who owns a dog which the owner knows or has reason to know has a propensity to attack, to cause injury or otherwise endanger the safety of human beings without provocation or which has been found to be a vicious animal by a court of competent authority, which bites, inflicts physical injury on or attacks a human being while at large is guilty of a class 6 felony.
–––
Kathleen should also ask her lawyer whether the animal control officer is subject to prosecution.
11-1019. Violation; Classification
Any person who fails to comply with the requirements of this article, or violates any of its provisions, is guilty of a class 2 misdemeanor unless another classification is specifically prescribed in this article.
30 June 2009 at 4:13 p.m.
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rtnaz (Rex Hinshaw) says…
I hope everyone here has read the letter to the editor from Wyman Kendall ,the owner of the dogs that attacked Ms Kelly. Ms. Kelly seemed to have left out the facts that she was on private property…having walked down a private deadend road ,through a gate marked with no treaspassing signs. I can understand her not knowing what had transpired between the animal control officer and Mr. Kendall , but she wrote as though she did. The rabies vacs. were checked and the dogs were quarantined according to Mr. Kendall
As an ER nurse I'm sure if her patient reports were as inaccurate and incomplete as her letter , she would be in hot water. I would further offer that Ms. Kelly confine her walks to public trails , public steets , sidewalks , and stay out of people's yards.
30 June 2009 at 4:19 p.m.
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rtnaz (Rex Hinshaw) says…
A quick correction it was not a private road….just a deadend one.
30 June 2009 at 7:53 p.m.
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Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…
Thanks, Rex!
I was just logging on to point out the same things.
Changes things a bit doesn't it?
A bit?
Let me change that to a whole lot!
Suddenly, everything that seemed unreasonable seems reasonable, and everything that seemed reasonable seems unreasonable.
Unless Wyman Kendall was making up facts as fast as he could type, and I see no reason to believe that, this is now a dead issue. And to be honest I'm glad it is. I was outraged when I read that original letter; it seemed that the animal control officer was, himself, out of control. I'm glad that's not the case. A job like that calls for someone with good judgment. Apparently the animal control officer displayed that good judgment in this case. That's nice to know. We depend a lot on such people.
One good thing came out of all this, though. I found out how easy it is to check on Arizona statutues. It was an absolute piece of cake. If you ever need to know something, try it yourself.
Don't try checking on Payson statutes, though. I did; I tried it on the Payson website and got sent to some generic statute website that said nothing at all about our local laws. Don't ask me why the Payson website sent me there, and if I'm wrong about it I'd be delighted (really!) if someone straightened me out.
30 June 2009 at 8:02 p.m.
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Ruby_Finney (Ruby Finney) says…
I would like to point out that Pat is familiar with the process and I wish to heck Mr Naughton would unbend and pay attention to the poster's requests . Bring Pat back!
Mr, Naughton, the berries are all ripening and boy are they good. If I could figure out a way to ship some and you'd accept berry bribes in exchange for Pat, I'd get them in the mail at once! Come on, be a sport and let us have her back to pick on.
1 July 2009 at 8:13 p.m.
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Kathleen (Kathleen Kelly) says…
Tom, I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees the problem. I had never heard from Mr. Kendall at all. So, I shocked at his response to my letter about his dogs attacking me. I kept his name and the Animal Control officer's name anonymous as a courtesy . After all, it wasn't about getting back at anyone. I was hoping that, if I showed how animal control is out of control, other’s would step up to make a difference. I am so afraid that the apathy about Animal Control is an accident waiting to happen! I’m hoping it won’t take a tragedy or a child being mutilated to get people to wake up. Mr. Kendal’s response just proved my point. I was glad that Mr. Kendal did finally have to prove rabi shots for his dogs and have his dogs quarantined. He can blame me for that. But it sure took a lot of my hard work, with letters to Chief of Police, Don Engler, Supervisor to Animal Control,, Lt. Garvin, and, finally, to Payson Roundup to even get that done! Mr Kendal bragged that he did not get cited! Dog owners haven't got much incentive to be responsible, do they? Isn’t the dog bite policy that they must be cited if the dog bite causes a “break in the skin?” I have pictures of the dog bite, if anyone is interested. I’ll take one today, because It still looks pretty nasty and I am still tending to this painful wound that happened three weeks ago!! When his dogs attacked me, Mr Kendall never even bothered to walk the half block down his road to see if I was OK, let alone “offer me a ride home.” Furthermore, if he was close enough to have a “conversation” he would have noticed my torn-bloody jeans where his dog bit me. He just shouted that this was a “dead end road!”( By the way,I also live at the end of a “dead-end road. I have never prevented anyone from using it.) I was so terrified. I was so shaken at that point that I probably would have accepted a ride home from Charlie Manson! But, I walked away slowly, hoping not to provoke him or his dogs any further. Mr. Kendal watched from his driveway at the end of the road! Mr Kendal even suggested that I should be cited for “ illegal trespassing” on HIS dead-end road. W. Rancho Road is a public easement/city property! He arrogantly stated that his dogs “generally” do not cross the “electronic confinement system.” Well, that sure didn’t work for me! Besides, I have since done some research and, the Animal Control policy states that your dogs must be fenced or leashed. Shock collars are NOT part of Payson’s dog confinement policy; probably because they only “generally” work! His letter sounded like he was making it up as he went along. Maybe he thinks I’m one of those people who loves to sue. I’d settle for Mr. Kendal and dog owners like him to be treated like anyone else who endangers the citizens of Payson. I will not be intimidated. I WILL continue to insist that Animal Control learns from what happened to me before something tragic happens.
1 July 2009 at 8:40 p.m.
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Kathleen (Kathleen Kelly) says…
I have had to defend myself since I first wrote my letter to the editor. My letter did not identify names or addresses. Mr Kendall's response did that, including the Officer's name. So, that said, I was attacked on W. Rancho road about 20 feet before there was a rock marked “111.” It's about a half a block down the road from Mr. Kendal's house.It took letters to the editor and to the Animal Control Supervisor to even get them to varify rabi shots and to tell the dog owner to contain his dogs for a short time. That scares me! The dog owner was not even cited. That scares me! When Officer Tanner tells me, before he even talked to Mr. Kendal, that he is good friends with the family, that the Kendal's have him on “speed dial” because they get upset when their dogs get loose, that the Kendal's dogs are contained by an electrical fence which is against Animal Control policy, and that he won't be doing anything because it is a legal “grey area” since Mr Kendal owns a lot of property on W. Rancho Rd. That scares me! If Animal Control does NOT learn from my complaints, what are we waiting for?? If the Animal Control policies mean nothing, what do we have an Animal Control Officers for??
2 July 2009 at 12:03 p.m.
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Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…
Well, well!
Looks like we have a whole new ballgame, doesn't it folks?
I wondered how there could be such a vast difference between what Kathleen said in her letter and what the dog owner said in his. And having read the dog owner's letter before Kathleen posted I was looking into the “electrical fence” thing to see if it complies with state, county, and city statutes regarding whether or not the dog was “at large,” in other words not fenced or otherwise controlled.
Here's the answer:
11-1001. Definitions
2. “At large” means being neither confined by an enclosure nor physically restrained by a leash.
Therefore, under state law the animals were “at large.”
There is a vast difference between what Kathleen kelly says and what the dog owner says, a difference that should not be allowed to exist. It may very well be that the appropriate place to resolve that difference is in a court of law.
2 July 2009 at 3:08 p.m.
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Kathleen (Kathleen Kelly) says…
That's city-slicker talk. Everyone rushes to get a lawyer and sue these days. I guess I'm just old fashioned enough to think that the only way you can make things better is to talk about the problems and get busy working on solutions. I want Don Tanner to be the best Animal Control Officer in Payson. I want people to not be afraid to inadvertantly walk down a dead-end road in this town. I want dog owners to protect their pets and the public. I want us all to get along. Call me the sqeecky wheel that gets the oil. I will have reached my goal if people are now more informed about their own responsibilities as pet owners and if Animal Control is aware that we expect them to be professional and do the job that we trust them to do.
2 July 2009 at 4:11 p.m.
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DonEvans (don evans) says…
I installed an electric field / shock collar perimeter set up, 3ft inside my 4ft high perimeter block wall rear yard at my old house. It worked for about one week keeping my dogs at bay inside our back yard which backed up to the US forest. That lasted about one week. My Springer Spaniel learned that if he took a running start, he could jump and easily clear the inside electric shock field and clear the solid wall. I was eventually able to break him of it and he stayed inside his yard area. I will agree that there are way to many local pet owners who think they live in circa 1880 and it's ok to let their dogs 1.run free into public places 2.Keep them chained outside while they leave town, no matter the weather conditions 3. and refuse to get them licensed, vaccinated, spayed or neutered. Sort of a anti establishment attitude on their part. They have no problem letting the dogs get pregnant and trying to sell the pups, especially pit bulls. Pepper spray works on most dogs if they appear to become aggressive, but not always. Some local owners (oops, I mean pet guardians) will have to suffer a fine before they comply.
6 July 2009 at 2:05 p.m.
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Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…
Don,
“3. and refuse to get them licensed, vaccinated, spayed or neutered.”
The spayed or neutered I knew about, and I've seen a few who balk at paying for a license, but I had no idea anyone would refuse to get his dogs vaccinated. That's ridiculous! You've got to have a lousy attitude to put other people at risk. Especially up here. I have personally see at least three wild animals that I was certain had rabies. Scared the hey out of me one time. Was a raccoon that was in someone's yard and I thought for a minute the old woman whose yard it was was going to try to “help” the poor thing. Thank God she decided to stay away from it. That was the first time, by the way, that I actually heard an animal groan like a human being. Didn't know they did that.
Everybody loves dogs, but I sometimes wonder about some people who have dogs. If they love them, why do they treat them so badly? Some jerks have far too many dogs for the small yard they have. And they just keep on accumulating more and more. Some of them stick dogs in a “run” that I would call a large cage, or let them crap and crap until there's no place left in the yard that the poor dogs can get away from it. I don't get it. The dogs are dirty, flea-bitten, half starved, and about as unhappy as any animals I've ever seen. If you love dogs why wouldn't you take care of them?
There's a guy who comes up from the valley to a nice little place almost directly across the street from me. He's always acquiring new dogs. I think he steps in when a dog needs a “friend.” Has about six now I think. But you should see the difference. They're clean. They're well fed. They get along well together. They run around a fairly good size yard while they're up here. They're just one happy looking bunch of dogs. Does me good every time I see them.
Your experience with your dog once again proves something I think we forget. If an animal wants to do something it'll work at it, and work at it, and work at it. What the hey! What else has it got to do? I had a dog over in Japan that got tired of being locled in one room when we went shopping. It scratched its way clean through a solid mahogany door. Cost me megabucks to replace it.
Best thing I've ever seen for training dogs was just yelling at them like mad when they do something wrong. They don't seem to much like that. On the other hand, I'm sure no expert.
8 July 2009 at 11:44 a.m.
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Kathleen (Kathleen Kelly) says…
“refuse to get them licensed, vaccinated, spayed or neutered.”
It’s not just a “lousy attitude.” It’s closer to criminal. There is NO cure for rabis. If not treated with the painful shots, you WILL die a very unpleasant death. So, it’s more than a matter of social graces.
“ Some jerks have far too many dogs for the small yard they have. And they just keep on accumulating more and more.”
Why? Because they CAN…and the Humane Society wants you to keep adopting more and more because, according to them, it’s cheaper to have a “no kill” policy and push them out on the public than it is to ship them to Globe to be euthanized? Am I the only one that does NOT see the logic in this??
“Best thing I've ever seen for training dogs was just yelling at them like mad when they do something wrong.” What ever works, short of abuse. I trained horses. I found that, it’s usually not about the horse. It’s about the rider. Maybe it’s a sign of the times. People are having children without accepting the responsibilities that go with it. Why do we expect them to take care of their pets?
PS: This is fun! I'm beginning to enjoy this new fangled blogging!
9 July 2009 at 12:11 p.m.
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Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…
Kathleen,
I've read some incredible things about training horses. Read how they do it down in South America in a book called “Tschiffely's Ride,” where a man rose two horses named Gato and Mancha 10,000 miles from Rio to Washington. It's an incredible book.
Then I read about how they break horses and camels in the Sudan in a book called “A Desert Dies.”
Fascinating stuff. Especially for someone (don't tell anybody this!) who has never in his life slid a leg over a horse.
I feel really bad about dogs who get mistreated. In their own way I thinkl they actually become a little nuts, just like people who are placed under too much stress.
I tell you, though, I agree with the no-kill thing if it can be done. Animals, I think, have as much right to be alive as we do. We need to do all we can to let them live.
Of course things like that can get out of hand. I've read about packs of dogs running free that were actually very dangerous. Where? Would you believe in New Jersey near the Toms River area.
And the yelling thing really does work. I suppose it has to do with the pack mentality. They probably look at the boss as the boss and don't like being yelled at because it implies disaproval or something. So much for my animal psychology, of which I know nothing.