St. Marys committee moving ahead with revised vicious dog ordinance

ST. MARYS - The city's vicious dog ordinance would no longer single out pit bulls under a proposal endorsed Monday by the city's streets and sidewalks committee.

Committee members agreed on breed neutral revisions that would focus on whether dogs are potential threats, vicious or dangerous.

The committee has had several meetings to gather community input as members re-crafted the ordinance.

Law director Kraig Noble Monday presented the committee with three possible revisions. Committee members preferred an option to drop a reference to pit bull breeds in the current ordinance and create categories for dangerous and vicious dogs.

No timetable was set for completing a draft of the revised ordinance. Noble will write the definitions for dangerous and vicious dogs.

Both types of dogs will need to be controlled with leashes and muzzles. Owners of vicious dogs will also need to provide proof of insurance.

The dog should be classified by the county dog warden or law enforcement, committee member Greg Freewalt said.

"I just want to stay away from breed specific and address a dangerous and vicious dog," committee member Ken Koverman said.

A second option was to leave in place the current ordinance, which was approved in December and explicitly mentioned pit bulls.

A third option was reduce the limits on pit bulls and allow those already owning more than one pit bull to keep them. The current ordinance allows possession of only one pit bull. Under this option, pit bull owners could keep the dogs if they provided proof their homeowner insurance covered the dogs.

Under a previous ordinance, a dog that exhibited menacing actions was considered dangerous while a dog that had bitten another dog or a person without being provoked was deemed vicious, Noble said. Committee members wanted to return to that language.

Committee member John Bubp stressed that ultimately the responsibility falls on dog owners for their pets' actions.