The Covington City Council is considering beefing up its city laws regarding dangerous and vicious dogs.
Currently the city contracts with King County Animal Control for response services when a call comes in regarding a dog attack and Covington follows the county’s rules for penalties and so on.
This issue arose, explained City Manager Derek Matheson, when a resident spoke during the public comment period at the council’s April 14 meeting.
“Margaret Richter spoke to the council about events that happened on Feb. 6 around 4 p.m.,” Matheson said. “She was walking to the bus stop with her dog, which was on a leash, to pick up her kindergartner and was attacked by a pit bull.”
A neighbor came to Richter’s rescue, according to the minutes of the April 14 meeting, and she told the council that Animal Control decided to “allow this dog to stay in the community as it did not have enough complaints on record for that individual.”
Richter explained that it’s easy to report incidents to the county and outlined how to do it via animal control’s Web site. She encouraged people to report any issues with vicious or potentially dangerous dogs.
From there, Matheson said, he did some research and found “the laws to be more complicated than you can imagine.”
King County’s ordinance supersedes state law, which Matheson described as more proscriptive, due to the way the state law is written.
“So, many cities go out and develop their own regulations,” Matheson said. “Covington, Maple Valley and Burien are the only ones who use just King County codes.”
Renton, Kent and Des Moines apply regulations quite similar to state law while Tukwila “has very specific rules” that require confinement of dangerous and potentially dangerous dogs that goes beyond state law.
Federal Way bans dangerous dogs entirely while Enumclaw has banned pit bulls. Auburn declares pit bulls and many other breeds dangerous automatically while also requiring an annual registration for such dogs.
SeaTac declares pit bulls dangerous and requires confinement of dangerous dogs and a muzzle when not confined.
Matheson explained these various steps taken by other cities during a presentation at the council’s June 9 meeting as examples of what Covington can do.
“The council can decide if it wants to supplement the county’s regulations,” Matheson said. “They want us to look at beefing up our contract with King County Animal Control so they can be more proactive rather than reactive.”
City staff are working on researching the issue further and developing options for a supplemental ordinance that would address the concerns the council has regarding dangerous dogs.
“They didn’t want to ban specific breeds,” Matheson said. “They didn’t want to ban dangerous dogs. They do want to beef up the penalties, possibly from a misdemeanor to a gross misdemeanor.”
Matheson said that Animal Control typically does not charge individuals with dangerous dogs with a crime and that “usually they require the dog to be confined or leashed or removed from King County.”
“My next step is to get the staff started on community education,” Matheson said. “I’m working on a survey to send to the appropriate staff person in each of the South King County cities to clarify questions the council members have. They’re concerned about whether the other cities’ ordinances are effective, how much it costs as well as how much staff time it would take.”
It will likely be another month or two before staff bring an ordinance back to the council, Matheson explained, and then a couple more meetings after that to hash out all the details.
Matheson said that county animal control officials estimate there are 4,389 dogs in Covington and that in 2008 there were 43 vicious dog calls and nine dog bite calls in the city. Through April of this year there were 13 vicious dog related calls and two reported bites. Covington makes up 1.5 percent of animal control’s service area and about .5 percent of vicious dog calls come from the city.
