Criminal penalties proposed for animal code violations

The city of McMinnville has been working on updates to its animal code since a March dog attack killed three pets.

On Tuesday, staff proposed changes, including instituting criminal misdemeanor charges for attacks and permitting lethal force for police and citizens confronting dangerous animals.

Residents have been calling for stiffer penalties for aggressive pets since four dogs (including hybrid wolf dogs) got loose and killed a dog and two cats on March 7. In a plea agreement, owner Sandra Atwood was found guilty on nine charges and ordered to pay $5,972 in fines and restitution along with ongoing kenneling costs for two of the dogs that were impounded. Two dogs recorded in the attacks were sent to a wolf dog sanctuary.

City attorney David Ligtenberg and police chief Cord Wood briefed city council during a work session on the proposed changes aimed at providing more enforcement tools for police and updating out-of-date policies.

Mac PD has received more than 500 calls for service regarding animals this year, including 350 animal nuisance cases and 20 animal bites. The city looked at other jurisdictions in the Willamette Valley with successful animal control programs and focused revisions on vicious dogs and unprovoked attacks, Wood said.

“That’s one of the things that we at the police department get called to deal with most often when it comes to animals,” Wood said of unprovoked attacks.

Wood used the term “animals” instead of dogs because law enforcement gets service calls for an array of pets despite Oregon laws restricting exotic animal ownership. He cited a prior case where fish and game officers responded to an apartment building in Portland “full of varieties of poisonous snakes.”

“Unfortunately, we’re called to deal with an ever-increasing variety of animals,” he said.

Under the changes, an attack causing injury to an animal or person would become a Class B misdemeanor, and an attack that killed a pet would become a Class A misdemeanor. Offenders would also be required to make full restitution for injury or death resulting from the attack, Wood said.

“If it bites somebody, I think that that’s probably time to consider a criminal level violation of the code,” he said.

Class A misdemeanors are punishable by a maximum of 364 days in jail and up to a $6,250 fine. Class B maximums are six months in jail and a $2,500 fine, according to Oregon revised statutes.

The change would give the municipal court discretion to levy appropriate fines in certain cases, especially for repeat offenders, Wood said. Current infractions have set amounts and the change would also simplify the search warrant and seizure process and allow the court to implement probation for owners.

“It would also give the court the additional tool to use bench probation as a way to manage and control owner behavior for the duration of the probation should someone be found guilty of a violation of the code,” he said.

The updated rules would add four violation levels for vicious dogs and corresponding owner requirements. The owner of a dog threatening other animals could be issued a Class C civil violation as level one and a Class B violation for threatening people or service animals. Levels three and four would deal with attacks.

The owner of a level one or two vicious dog could be required to secure fencing on their property, while a level three dog would require a secure enclosure, warning signs and a muzzle and leash when off property, according to Wood.

“If your dog bites someone or another animal I think that if it’s not on your property or under your immediate control within your house you should have to muzzle and leash it when its off your property,” he said. “It has a record of engaging in behavior that’s dangerous.”

The highest-level offenders could be euthanized by court order, according to Wood.

Mayor Kim Morris asked about circumstances where a smaller dog provokes a bigger dog into biting it or similar situations. Those types of incidents wouldn’t be considered unprovoked attacks, Wood said.

“I’m talking about instances where the dog or animal ... without provocation attacks another person or attacks an animal,” he said. “They’re walking through the park and they bite the kid for no discernable reason.”

The term vicious dog could be applied to first-time offenders, but would likely focus on animals with a history of being a danger to the community, Wood said.

State laws for dangerous dogs require a second offense for the classification; however, city rules are broader and give law enforcement the option to classify a dog as vicious after an initial attack, Ligtenberg said.

A community member’s suggestion to track owners instead of individual dogs when issuing escalating penalties could be applied to the updates, Ligtenberg said.

Wood also called for enhanced protections for officers, enforcement partners and residents who destroy vicious dogs, citing cases such as dog fighting or diseased animals.

“We don’t have any provisions in our code to protect our staff for those circumstances where they have to deal with an animal that is in that kind of state,” he said. “Either so dangerous, so aggressive, sick, injured. So dangerous that it poses such as risk to the person to deal with. I think we need to build some protections into code for our officers and for some of those folks that we may call to help us with animal-related investigations.”

Later in the presentation he included cases where residents may need to protect themselves from dangerous animals.

“I think we need to build in protections to our officers and our citizenry that when they’re confronted with that they have the ability to reasonably respond to the situation that they’re confronted with,” he said.

Councilor Dan Tucholsky asked how destroying a vicious dog would be justified and not result in a lawsuit from its owner.

The protections would be similar to that of a self-defense case, Wood said.

“That based on the reasonable belief that that animal posed a significant risk of physical injury, serious physical injury and or death. Once that criteria was met, then action could be taken,” he said.

Council President Sal Peralta asked about the city adopting its own licensing fee program to provide a revenue source for enforcement. Currently, the city receives a portion of licensing fees from Yamhill County in exchange for enforcing animal control.

“I feel like (dog control is) falling onto the police and it’s not necessarily the most efficient use of your staff time and I’m also concerned that we’re really not meeting the needs of the community with the current framework, which is not having some kind of more formal program,” Peralta said.

The idea hasn’t been explored, and Wood questioned the administrative toll such a program would place on the department, but said he is open to the idea.

“We’ve been presented with one extreme example over the last six months, right, and that example has absorbed hundreds of hours of just my staff time and that doesn’t count the court staff, the city prosecutor, the city attorney’s time navigating that,” Wood said. “And so my focus has been primarily on how can we simplify those with familiar processes (for) staff while making those processes easier and more streamlined for other departments of the city to administer too.”

Ligtenberg also reviewed current animal policy, which he called outdated.

“To be perfectly honest (current animal code) is convoluted, some of it is overbroad, some of it is subject to faulty definitions and, honestly, some if it’s just obsolete,” he said. “It’s old. It’s code that was dealing with a different city at a different time.”

Ligtenberg said some of the problem areas in existing code include penalties as low as $5 for leash violations, overlap between police and code enforcement responsibilities and licensing policies that are out of the city’s control. In addition, the rules provide fencing requirements that are unlikely to be enforced and provisions allowing a non-jury trial with no opportunity for appeal.

Suggestions submitted by a group of citizens include escalating penalties, better enforcement of licensing rules and collections for violations and contracting more kennel space and not releasing impounded dogs until fines are paid. Also suggested were better definitions for vicious dogs and a prohibition of wolf hybrids, which Ligtenberg called a “local favorite.”

Establishing a specific breed ban would take time and require thorough vetting and expert analysis, according to Ligtenberg. He said he is not aware of any other programs with breed restrictions. Wood said he isn’t aware of any municipality that has instituted a breed restriction by ordinance; however, several Oregon cities and counties have some restrictions.

Malheur County in eastern Oregon has restrictions for certain breeds of dogs (including American pit bull terriers and Cane Corsos) that require owners to muzzle them in public and own an approved enclosure. Crook County doesn’t outright ban wolf dog hybrids, but it does have specific rules for the breed, including a concrete or wire floored enclosure to prevent digging out and a perimeter fence between an enclosure and property fence.

Although no formal votes were taken, council generally supported the work, with Morris asking for minimum fines to be established for certain offenses. Any changes to city code will need to come back to council for approval.