Keep Doggie Off the Grass—
New Ordinance Raises Fines
By Sara Nelson

Lackadaisical dog owners, beware. Randolph has added a second dog officer and, come January, will be implementing a new dog ordinance that clearly spells out the consequences for owners of unruly pets.

The selectboard approved the new ordinance last month, after a summer of high-profile dog incidents.

Town manager Peter Butterfield said when he took office last February, he was surprised by the number of dog complaints the town was receiving.

"A new dog ordinance wasn’t necessarily on my agenda when I came on board," he said. "These issues are not anyone’s favorite thing to deal with, but we were getting quite a few complaints."

In one incident, one dog attacked another in the park. In another, a dog bit a town employee.

Part of the problem was that the town had only one dog officer, who was on-call only during odd hours, and there hadn’t been training in dog-handling in a long time. To address the problem, the town held a training, upgraded equipment, and added a daytime officer. It also drafted the new ordinance.

Butterfield said the ordinance generated a lot of discussion about the balance of "animal rights and societal rights."

"Some people were concerned that the town would over-aggressively pursue animals, and others were concerned that if the language was stripped too bare, we couldn’t intervene in a situation," he said.

In the end, the ordinance that was accepted is "at heart, very much the same" as the old one. It was expanded to address dogs that attack other domestic animals and pets, and to deal with dog defecation on property. It also outlines clearer steps for enforcement officers to take, and updates the fines for misbehaving dogs.

As the process is set up in the new ordinance, the dog officer will investigate complaints made to the town office, and dispense a written warning. After the first offense, the owner will be charged a series of fines for subsequent offenses. In severe cases, the town has the right to impound the dog.

Behaviors forbidden in the new ordinance include excessive barking, defecation on public or private property that the owner doesn’t clean up, and running at large.

Also, unregistered dogs or dogs not wearing their tags can be immediately impounded, and cases of vicious dogs go to the criminal court system.

The new ordinance doesn’t go into effect until January 17, but already Randolph dogs seem to be shaping up.

Butterfield said he hadn’t heard of any new incidents recently.

"It’s been pretty quiet for last couple of months," he said.