Police have responded to two recent dog attacks in Elgin, weeks after the city passed a new animal control ordinance with sweeping ramifications for dogs that injure people or other animals.
Officials said that, because the new ordinance doesn’t go into effect until June, neither dog owner in the unrelated incidents could be ticketed under its provisions.
But Mayor Ed Schock said they underscore the reason the ordinance was enacted.
In one incident earlier this month, police said a Rottweiler bit the 10-year-old son of the dog’s owner as the family was trying to corral the 100-pound dog to take him to the veterinarian. The nature of the boy’s injuries wasn’t disclosed, except that the injuries were not life-threatening.
Deputy police Chief Cecil Smith said the family, who live in the 200 block of Maureen Drive, took all the necessary steps under the current ordinance, which includes taking the 3-year-old dog to be quarantined for 10 days and having his records up to date. Smith said the family, whose names were not given and who could not be reached, were considering giving up the dog.
Hours earlier, a separate incident was reported in which a woman who lives in the 3000 block of Taunton Street was walking her chocolate Labrador-terrier mix on a leash. On Gansett Street, a leashed tan pit bull mix approached, and police said the dogs fought. The woman’s dog was taken to an animal hospital for stitches and antibiotics.
Police said the pit bull and its owner, whom the victim’s owner did not know, left the scene without identifying himself. Police were trying to locate the dog owner.
Once the new ordinance goes into effect, owners of dogs determined by an animal control officer to be dangerous must receive a license from the city, fence in their dogs and muzzle them in public, post warning signs and purchase liability insurance, among other requirements.
Following an outcry from pit bull owners, the city council rejected a more far-reaching ordinance that would automatically label the breed as dangerous. Despite that, Schock, who owns German shepherds, said the discussion was important because “for anybody who owns a large dog that can be potentially dangerous, it made us all think.”
Schock said he will continue to push for an ordinance that would require all dogs to be registered and licensed. He called that “a remaining weakness” in the ordinance said it could raise needed revenue to hire more animal control officers.
