Thursday, May. 08, 2008

County has leash law since 2002

Talk about eye-openers.

Not only is it not OK for property owners in unincorporated areas of Parker County to shoot animals that stray onto their land, it’s also against the law to let pets run loose. Parker County Attorney John Forrest said the county adopted a leash law in 2002. Not even cats are free to roam.

"This happened after a Red Cross volunteer, Joan Goodpasture, was attacked by two boxers while she was jogging in Murl’s Lake Estates," he said.

The animal control ordinance adopted June 10, 2002, was primarily designed to address rabies control, said Assistant County Attorney Fred Barker. According to the ordinance, owners of dogs, cats and ferrets must keep their pets restrained to prevent them from leaving the owners’ properties. That means the pets must be somehow confined, or, if taken off the property by an owner, must be on a leash.

The ordinance also makes it mandatory for owners to keep their pets’ rabies vaccinations current and makes it unlawful to tether or chain a dog for longer than 20 minutes or more than five times a day (except under certain conditions).

Those aren’t all the issues addressed by the ordinance. But Forrest said the most important thing for county residents to know is that the days of country pets being allowed to roam are long gone.

Terry Evans