Amendment lets county destroy vicious animals

By By Steve Gillespie / staff writer
Jan. 6, 2004
Lauderdale County supervisors approved two amendments Monday to strengthen its county animal ordinances including one giving the county authority to destroy animals deemed vicious.
The second amendment broadens the definition of large, dangerous or predatory animals that owners are required to have permits to own.
The amendments were recommended by Dewayne Sosebee, Lauderdale County animal control director.
Although the changes come less than a month after a Meridian woman was mauled by dogs in Marion, county officials said the amendments wouldn't have affected the county's involvement in that incident because county animal control ordinances apply to unincorporated areas.
Sosebee said the vicious dog amendment was recommended in response to dog attacks in October in Center Hill, where a miniature horse owned by Sharon Talbert was killed and another was mauled by dogs she said belonged to neighbors who let them run loose.
The requirements
The amendment says that the supervisor of animal control or his designee can destroy an animal that has been determined to be vicious providing two of the following requirements are met:
The animal is running at large or is not properly confined or muzzled;
There is no vaccination tag around the animal's neck; and
Attempts to capture the animal peacefully have been made and proven unsuccessful.
City cases
Sosebee said in municipalities police would have to determine whether an animal that attacks a person or other animal is vicious or not, and then an investigation would have to be done to make sure the animal was not provoked to bite or attack.
The second amendment was to an ordinance putting requirements of permits and insurance for owners of large, dangerous or predatory animals.
The amendment added hybrid wolves to the animals listed in the ordinance. An owner of at least five wolf hybrids lives in the county, Sosebee said.