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Forum: Place all responsibility for pets on owners

Now that we're a TNR community, let's take the next step and become a POAAR - Pet Owner Assumes All Risks - community.

It's agreed on all sides that we'd hardly need government animal control if pet owners took responsibility for their animals. And when the Athens-Clarke Commission legalized a "trap-neuter-return" protocol for addressing the feral cat problem, several commissioners described the program as an interim measure, a stop-gap to which they were driven by crushing budgetary pressures - hardly a ringing endorsement.

If commissioners weren't just posturing for the galleries when they endorsed the TNR approach in that backhanded way, then they should be interested in a proposal for addressing what by their own account is the central issue here - owner irresponsibility.

If I understand the ordinances dealing with impoundment and adoption of animals, the county's Animal Control Division is required to hold any animal it impounds - whether that animal bears mandated identification and evidence of vaccination or doesn't - for five business days, during which Animal Control must make an effort to locate the animal's owner.

But by giving the same consideration to both vaccinated, tagged animals and to pets of scofflaw owners who just can't be bothered to meet the minimum legal requirements of pet care here, the government actually may be enabling owner irresponsibility. Maybe it would change that dynamic if our ordinances were amended to provide for the following four things:

► Authorize Animal Control to treat as unowned any animal in its custody lacking valid identification and evidence of vaccination.

► Absolve Animal Control of the duty to house an unidentified animal for any specified period.

► Give Animal Control complete discretion to dispose of an unidentified animal at its convenience by any lawful means.

► Hold Animal Control faultless for the loss of any animal in its custody lacking valid identification and evidence of required vaccination.

I don't know whether it can be done by local ordinance, but a related measure that could move us in the direction of a POAAR community is to extend the liability shield I propose for Animal Control to county veterinarians and private animal control companies. I understand that there's reluctance among some area practitio

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