St. Marys may put more teeth into dog ordinance

ST. MARYS - Officials are seeking to strengthen the city's dog ordinance that includes regulations for pit bulls.

The action is in response to a judgment in December in a Third District Court of Appeals case between the city of Lima and a resident. The court ruled against the city's policy for pit bulls by upholding Ohio's law, which was amended in 2012 to no longer identify the breed as a vicious animal.

St. Marys' ordinance - despite the change in Ohio's law - names pit bulls as a possible threat, requiring owners to have them contained in the home or in a pen with a roof. The dog also is required to be on a leash and muzzled when taken for a walk.

St. Marys Law Director Kraig Noble said without statistics to back up the city's ordinance, it likely would not be upheld if challenged in court.

The city's streets and sidewalks committee met Monday night and discussed the issue at the request of committee member Robin Willoughby. She said some constituents have complained that pit bulls are not being properly contained, which could lead to an incident.

"I understand it's not always pit bulls," she said. "But there's people who have stopped walking because they're scared of dogs running loose."

Auglaize County Dog Warden Russ Bailey, who was invited Monday to share his perspective, said St. Marys is on the right path with its law that requires all dogs to be kept on a leash when outside. He suggested enforcing the law more strictly, possibly eliminating warnings and automatically ticketing dog owners who let their dogs run loose.

Although not all pit bulls are vicious, the breed should receive special consideration, Bailey said. Since pit bulls were removed from the Ohio Revised Code as a dangerous dog, Bailey said he has seen an increase in the number of pit bull complaints.

"(Owners) don't have to keep them in a cage, and they (pit bulls) break everything you tie them up to because they're so strong," he said. "We do see more pit-bulls-on-the-loose calls, more menacing pit bulls."

He stressed there is a difference between mean dogs and dangerous dogs.

"A mean dog is a dog that wants to eat anybody, any chance he gets. That's not necessarily a pit bull," he said. "We get more pit bulls than any other breed in the dog pound. But the pit bull, most of them that we get in are very friendly."

What most people don't realize, he added, is some breeds instinctively are more likely to attack after certain triggers. Bailey was a certified national dog trainer as a police officer. He said when looking for a good police dog, officers looked for breeds with a strong "prey drive."

"What that means is I want a dog that is calm, and I can bring him in here and everyone in here can pet him if they want, but prey drive is if I do any kind of suspicious movement or anything, that dog fires up on his own," he said. "It's a hunting thing. It's instinctive and it's more prevalent in certain breeds. Pit bulls have a very high prey drive.

"You can raise this dog from a pup and it can be the best dog in the world, but it only takes one certain movement, not on purpose, that kicks in his prey drive, and it's instinctive and that's when they bite you, and that's when they are dangerous."

The pit bull's jaw strength makes the issue even more serious, he noted. Bailey said a German shepherd bites with a force of 800 pounds per square inch. A pit bull's bite has 2,000 pounds of pressure per square inch and their jaws lock.

"If my poodle bites you, you're going to kick him and he's going to get off of you," Bailey said. "But if a pit bull bites you, you are at his mercy. I'm not saying they are all mean, because they aren't. But they have an extremely high prey drive."

Bailey also noted that the U.S. had 32 deaths by dog in 2013. Of those, 25 were from pit bulls.

"That's an extremely high number," he said. "At some point you do have to look at the stats."

Council committee members, which included Willoughby, Greg Freewalt, John Bubp and Ken Overman, agreed more evidence of incidents in the city needs to be compiled to back up the ordinance

Safety service director Greg Foxhoven said he could easily collect the statistics and would work to get a report together to back up the ordinance.