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Council gives initial support to dangerous animal ordinance

With some amendments, a dangerous animal ordinance gained support from the Minot City Council on first reading Monday.

The ordinance defines what constitutes dangerous as well as annoying and provides that owners will have to appear in court, where a judge can choose remedies from a number of options.

Under the new language, owners would be cited for animals that:

– when unprovoked, bites, claws or otherwise harms a human or domestic animal on public or private property.

– when unprovoked, chases or approaches a person, including a person on a bicycle, upon the streets, sidewalks or any public or private property other than the owner’s property, in an apparent attitude of attack.

– when unprovoked, kills a domestic animal while off the owner’s property.

– has been designated as a dangerous animal by another jurisdiction.

Council member Stephan Podrygula asked for additional language to more precisely define “apparent attitude of attack.” The council approved inserting examples to include snarling, lunging, charging, chasing and growling.

The ordinance wording excludes dogs protecting an owner’s private property from trespassers or other uninvited persons.

The new ordinance allows the judge to order an owner to remove or euthanize an animal, keep the animal in an enclosure, submit an animal to obedience training, post warning signs, not allow a pet outdoors during certain hours, implant a microchip, sterilize an animal, carry insurance, not sell an animal to another owner in the city or take other actions to keep the court informed.

The council changed language regarding the insurance coverage that could be ordered to use the example of $500,000 per person or $1 million per incident. The original wording copied the Fargo ordinance, which listed $300,000.

“As we are writing this ordinance, it’s important we give an indication of how serious we think some of these matters can become,” said Mark Jantzer, council president. “There needs to be clarity that enough insurance is in place.”

Council member Shannon Straight said it will be important to review the ordinance in a year to see how well it is working.

“It’s all about enforcement and the public’s ability to get the information from the city on what’s acceptable and not,” he said. “We have to do a better job from the city’s standpoint of conveying what is acceptable animal behavior.”

He also asked for clear documentation of the behaviors seen by the police and animal control officers.

“These folks who have reached out to me in the last few days are incredibly frustrated that the documentations are all very subjective,” he said. “We all see it a little bit differently. What’s snarling to one is pet-friendly behavior to another.”

The council will consider the ordinance on second and final reading at its Oct. 1 meeting.

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