From: Nancy Ray
Columbus
I am grateful to live in a community with two animal shelters that take excellent care of animals, offer low cost spay/neuter options for owners, provide free food for animals during times of need, and have two local funds to help with veterinary care. In addition, the city shelter has a Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return cat program and an up-to-date ordinance with best practices for animal care.
Bartholomew County law enforcement, prosecutors and animal control officers attended training last year on how to investigate and prosecute animal abuse. These examples are proof we are a caring community and the welfare of animals is important to the people who live here.
However, we still have work to do to provide protection for our pets who live in Bartholomew County but outside Columbus, Hope and Edinburgh city limits. The county’s Animal Care Regulations have not been updated since the 1980s. The wording is vague and does not address current standards of care of dogs and cats. Basically, it is ineffective in providing a tool needed for county animal control officers to enforce humane care.
Current regulations do not address tethering, what constitutes adequate shelter or actions owners mo must take in extreme weather conditions. The county commissioners who supervise county animal control have said the county doesn’t have the resources or manpower to accommodate increased calls to animal control if stricter laws were established.
However, according to Nichol Birdwell- Goodin, director of city animal control, after they updated the city ordinance in 2019, calls and runs were not significantly higher. What the new ordinance did was give the officers the ability to do something. No additional staff was needed. The ordinance gave the officers the regulations they needed to help or remove the issues and eventually their calls and runs decreased. When a citizen spoke to members of the Bartholomew County Council in 2022 about the county animal ordinance, she was told the commissioners have never asked for more funding for additional staff or resources and the request would be considered if the need was proposed.
A step that could be taken by the commissioners is to reinstate an Animal Control Commission made up of volunteers. This commission could research and make recommendations for ordinance updates. The commission could also act as a liaison between residents, county animal control officers and the commissioners. City animal control and animal control departments of surrounding counties have expressed the commissions are valuable assets to the community at no cost to the taxpayers.
Currently, our county animals are not protected by adequate laws at the county or state level. It makes no sense that in the city limits of Columbus, Hope and Edinburgh, animal care regulations are updated and effective but animals outside these municipalities have minimal regulations to protect them. Why won’t our elected and appointed county officials work together with citizens to provide more protections for animals?
