City of Cranbrook staff has completed a thorough review of the city Animal Control Bylaw, which council adopted at their regular meeting on Monday night (Jan. 18).

The exercise was intended to be a housekeeping review. However, the process ended up being quite extensive and required a number of changes, the city reported.

Those changes include: the removal of breed specific licensing; regulations of off-leash parks; requirements around wild animals; provisions related to vicious and dangerous dogs and a handful of housekeeping amendments related to number of pets allowed to be kept, notice of impoundment and updates references to provincial legislation.

“The removal of breed specific licensing will encourage all residents of Cranbrook to license their dog, regardless of breed,” said Deb Girvin, city Bylaw Services Manager. “For a licensing program to be accurate and effective, animal control needs to know the numbers, breeds, and locations of dogs within the city. This information is used to help us deal with complaints related to dogs, and to return stray dogs to their owners.”

The previous bylaw required a higher licence fee for pitbulls (pictured above), which served as a deterrent to complying with licence requirements and basically compromised the purpose of the licensing program.

“This philosophy has been confirmed by an extensive study conducted by the SPCA,” Girvin noted.

Other changes to the previous Animal Control Bylaw were necessary to align regulations with provincial legislation with respect to keeping wild animals and establishing criteria for deeming a dog as vicious, or dangerous.

Coun. Danielle Cardozo commended city staff for their work on the updates after council unanimously approved Animal Control Bylaw No. 3845, 2016.

To review the new bylaw, visit the city’s website and click on ‘Bylaws & Council Information’ under City of Cranbrook links on the homepage.

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