Council Backs Off Five Dog Rule

By Kevin Robinson in News on Dec 1, 2009 3:00PM

The Chicago City Council deferred making a decision on limiting dog ownership to no more than five Monday. The council's licensing committee put off a vote on 31st Ward Ald. Ray Suarez's proposed ordinance in the face of criticism from pet lovers, veterinarians, and animal advocates. The city council has tried to limit animal ownership in the city for over a decade, without success. Suarez says that the proposed ordinance was prompted by neighbors in his ward that own so many animals, “the people next door could not even use their own backyard,” Suarez told the Tribune. “They could not open the windows ... because of the smell.”

And while the ordinance has support from the Chicago Police Department, and the head of the city's animal control department, it appears that passage of the law may not be popular with neither other aldermen nor their constituencies. “We are retroactively legislating what they can and cannot do,” 6th Ward Ald. Freddrenna Lyle said. “We need to take a look at that, colleagues, because that’s not exactly the way it should be done.” Lyle is particularily upset that there is no "grandfather clause" in the ordinance, allowing pet owners that currently have more than five pets to continue ownership. "I'm not opposed to having some kind of reasonable limitation that people are aware of before they make these choices. But, we certainly should not pass anything that's gonna require people to have to go out in 30 days and decide which one of their animals they're going to get rid of," Lyle said. And 29th Ward Ald. Isaac Carothers said the ordinance addresses the symptom, not the root problem. "Some people might have ten dogs and have a wonderful, clean environment, take care of 'em and do everything. But, I know people who've got two dogs and people complain all the time how they don't clean up after 'em, the dogs always run loose. They bark," Carothers said.

While the ordinance appears to be stalled now, Suarez seems determined to do something about people that own excessive pets. "No one wants to make you a criminal. We'll look at a different approach, if that's what it takes. But, there's got to be a solution somewhere because there is a problem out there and it has to be addressed," he said.