Theresa Clifton, executive director of the Central Brevard Humane Society, says her agency depends on public donations in the ongoing effort to provide homes for stray or abandoned animals.
So she was upset last week when Sheriff Wayne Ivey proposed a revision to the county animal-control ordinance that, in part, would allow his Animal Control Division, which gets county tax revenue, to also solicit private donations toward running its own adoption, spaying and neutering efforts.
“They’re going to be competing with us and any nonprofit animal-welfare organization,” Clifton said. But then she talked with Ivey on Friday and came away a much happier animal rescuer.
Ivey said he intended mainly to aim for grants and sponsorships to supplement taxes and fees.
“The last thing we want is to compete with any organization that provides help for pets,” he said. “We don’t ask for donations now and we don’t intend to.”
It’s part of a massive overhaul of an ordinance that’s so old, Ivey said, that he can’t find anyone who can tell him when it was last updated. Ivey’s office took over animal control in 2014, before which it was a county function.
The County Commission was expected to pass the updates in its meeting Tuesday. Ivey said he would ask commissioners to let him tweak the section on donations and grants to remove any competition with the Humane Society or the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Clifton said her organization works hand-in-hand with the sheriff. The difference, she said, is Ivey’s officers go out to nuisance-animal or dangerous-dog complaints and take the animal back to the county shelter.
Her shelter, Clifton said, receives strays or surrendered animals if someone brings them in. She said the county also investigates animal abuse, a task the Humane Society once did but later left to the county.
Both agencies work to educate pet owners and adopt out their healthy animals, they said. And the animal-control law needed to be updated, Ivey said, to reflect current state law and provide more efficiency.
For one thing, he said, the revised ordinance would provide for a “community cat” program that would let people have free-roaming cats if someone steps forward as the caregiver and provides ongoing food and water daily and medical care as needed.
Ivey said the cats would have to be spayed or neutered and vaccinated against rabies. The revised ordinance also calls for their ears to be tipped.
Clifton also hailed the new regulations preventing people from leaving poisons, drugs, alcohol or other substances out that could kill a stray pet. And she liked the restrictions on tethering dogs outside the home. There’s a “clear link,” the ordinance states, between tying a dog outside and the animal’s increasing aggression.
The revised law prohibits dog owners from using chain tethers with links measuring 2.5 mm thick. The tether must not weigh more than one-eighth of the dog’s own weight. A violation of this provision would authorize an animal control officer to take the dog to the county shelter in Melbourne.
The tether should allow the dog to move at least 10 feet in all directions, the law states, and the owner needs to provide a shelter from the weather within the dog’s reach. Even so, the ordinance bars owners from leaving their dogs outside in extreme heat, freezing cold or storms.
County animal control officers won’t be issuing citations for violating the new tethering regulations within the next six months. The ordinance says they’ll be taking that time to educate violators of the revised law and giving them 30 days to make corrections.
At press time, one issue remained unsettled. The ordinance requires veterinarians to sell county pet tags, following a rabies vaccination, and relay the fees to the county. They can add $2 for their own service in the transaction. Selling tags is voluntary now.
Ivey said the county has 272,600 pet dogs and cats, but sold just 64,209 licenses in 2017, for a 24 percent compliance rate. And of those licenses sold, county figures show, veterinarians voluntarily sold 37,080.
Dr. Jeff Godwin wasn’t one of them. Godwin, a veterinarian with a 37-year practice and offices in Melbourne Beach, Indialantic and Melbourne, said he provides pet owners with county literature and directions to the Animal Control Division.
“I’m opposed to the idea of paying a pet license tax in the first place,” Godwin said. “Animal control serves everyone, so everyone should pay (including non-owners).”
Under the revised law, veterinarians who don’t collect the fees can be fined from $100 on first offense to $500 and a County Court appearance on the fourth.
Godwin said that shows him the county just wants to make money off pet ownership. Not so, Ivey said. “It’s not about the fees, it’s about compliance with licensing,” Ivey said.
Article by: Henry A. Stephens
