tagged: Crime, Dogs, Government

Police Chief: Dog Fine An ‘Attention Getter’

Posted by Patrick in Crime, Dogs, Government

A lot of communities these days like to call themselves “dog friendly.”  But along the coast of good old South Carolina, there’s a community that doesn’t seem to be interested in such a title.

South Carolina’s former first lady, Jenny Sanford, found this out the hard way when her black Labrador Retriever, Julius, got loose while she was at a yoga class.  She says she found him at the Sullivan’s Island police department, and was issued a fine of $1,042 because he was found roaming the neighborhood.

Really?  A thousand dollars?

The chief of police there told WCSC-TV that the fine is “an attention getter.”  I’m sure it succeeds in that regard.

Dogs sometimes get loose.  Particularly some breeds, like Labs.  If the dog is properly collared or microchipped, finding his owner shouldn’t be a tremendous problem.  It takes local employees to deal with the problem, but to charge that level of fine is absurd.  My dad had a black lab who lived to be 15.  A few times, he’d get out and roam around, but he was usually never gone for more than an hour or two, then he returned to the front yard.  My dad electrified the fence, and now and then we’d hear the stubborn dog yell out when he decided to “test” the fence just to see if it was still working.

In a perfect world, a dog would never leave its yard.  The real world is far from perfect.

The fine itself is to get people to show up at court, where a judge may reduce the fine in exchange for the dog owner appearing, depending on circumstances.  But there’s clearly no guarantee that a four-digit fine wouldn’t be allowed to stand, even if there’s no evidence that the dog did any property damage or injured anyone.

Sanford says she already had to give one of her dogs away when it got loose two years ago and prompted a $500 fine.  In two years, it seems, the fine has doubled.

But wait: it gets worse!

The island requires a permit for all dogs that walk their beach, including those belonging to visitors.  The fee? Get this:  $35!  And it’s mandatory.

The City of Charleston charges a one-time fee of just $5 for a dog license.  So if I decided to take my dog for a walk on the beach at Sullivan’s Island, it would cost me seven times what a lifetime license costs in the city in which he actually resides.

Maybe the message they’re trying to send is that dogs are in no way welcome on Sullivan’s Island.  That, at least, is the message I’m getting.

And as far as I’m concerned, if my dog isn’t welcome there, I’m not, either.