Click here to download a PDF of the draft animal ordinance county officials are considering.
GOSHEN -- You'd be able to keep your dog if it bit or attacked someone under a draft animal ordinance Elkhart County officials are considering.
It wouldn't be easy, though.
You'd have to pay a $500 "dangerous animal" registration fee, get $300,000 in liability insurance in the event the dog attacks again and confine the canine to your home or a secure kennel, among other things.
Other elements of the proposed ordinance, the focus of a planned public meeting next week:
* You'd have to clean up after Fido if he or she does his or her business off your property, while on a neighborhood stroll, say.
* You couldn't leave your animal inside a car "when the weather would constitute a health hazard."
* You couldn't transport your pet in an unenclosed truck bed.
A special committee has been working on the animal ordinance for about a year and a half and recently finished a draft document, according to County Administrator Tom Byers. The aim is to update the existing 1987 law, broad in parts, and pinpoint how exactly to deal with "dangerous" animals, dog or not.
Now public input will be sought and then, depending on the response to the proposal, it most likely will go to the Elkhart County Board of Commissioners for a formal hearing. The new law would apply mainly to pets and only in the unincorporated sections of the county, not in any cities or towns.
NO BREED BAN
A 2007 attack by a pit bull on a pair of wheaten terriers spurred efforts to update the county's animal ordinance. The proposal, however, does not ban pit bulls or otherwise single out any specific breed for particular treatment, as do some ordinances around the country.
"The thinking was that a dangerous animal is a dangerous animal and that can be any breed," said Byers. Dangerous animals, under the proposal, include critters that have bitten, attacked or attempted to attack people without provocation and animals that have attacked other animals while off their owner's property.
The proposed ordinance allows a seeming measure of leeway in dealing with animals involved in attacks. Whereas the 1987 ordinance says dogs and other animals "with vicious or dangerous propensities" may not be kept, the new proposal would let owners keep such animals.
Still, the wording in the 1987 ordinance is vague, Byers said, and it doesn't specify what, precisely, should happen to dangerous animals, stating only that they may not be kept in Elkhart County. Then there are the multitude of hoops a dog owner would have to jump through to keep the animal if it's deemed dangerous.
Aside from the fee, insurance and confinement requirements, the critter would have to be spayed or neutered. What's more, it would have to stay exclusively on the owner's property, except for medical treatment. Even then, it would have to be muzzled for a trip to the veterinarian.
First-time offenders to the proposed ordinance would face a fine of $250 to $500. If the violation stems from the care or handling of an animal deemed dangerous, the critter could be euthanized.
HAVE YOUR SAY ABOUT A COUNTY ANIMAL ORDINANCE
Elkhart County commissioners will conduct a public meeting on the proposed animal ordinance on Nov. 10.
It starts at 6 p.m. in the Elkhart County Public Services Building, 4230 Elkhart Road, Goshen.
Links to the proposed ordinance are available at the top of this story and at the commissioners' Web site. Copies also may be obtained by calling the commissioners' office at 534-3541 or e-mailing Kathy Erschen at kerschen@elkhartcounty.com.