long article on dogs and cold weather:: (from vet pet)

[davet]

Law enforces cold safety for pets
01/19/2004, New Britain Herald

While the recent January cold spell can seem miserable enough for humans and animals alike, for the town's police and animal control officers, their job now requires them to officially determine when unpleasant weather legally becomes "unreasonable."

Based on a new law that went into effect Oct. 1, Connecticut's animal control officers have the authority to determine if owners keep their pets outdoors in the cold for too long.

According to the law, "any person who confines or tethers a dog for an unreasonable period of time shall be fined."

In the 25 years Gabriele Paciotti has worked in Plainville as the police department's animal control officer, last week was one of the worst for cold weather negligence complaints, she said. According to Paciotti, by Friday morning she had already received five complaints from residents concerned about an animal's well-being.

One White Oak Avenue resident called police last weekend to report his neighbor had left her dog outside for two days without adequate shelter from the cold, according to police reports. When officers arrived, they discovered the dog was left with chicken bones and a frozen water bowl, the reports said.

Because last week's single-digit temperatures and sub-zero wind shears constituted "unreasonable" weather conditions for an owner to keep a dog outside overnight, the officers invoked the new law's penalties.

Owners are fined less than $100 for their first offense, less than $250 for their second offense and less than $500 for subsequent offenses, according to the law.

The officers reprimanded the owner for this first offense, but the owner persisted in holding a different interpretation of "unreasonable" weather, according to the police report.

"(She) seemed to find it amusing that the dog may actually be cold and would require better shelter under those conditions," the report said.

Despite the disagreement, Cathy Grant, Connecticut regional manager for the Luv My Pet mobile animal vaccination clinic, said interpreting what an "unreasonable period" of weather and time is should be simple.

"If a human is uncomfortably cold outside, chances are an animal is also going to be uncomfortably cold outside," Grant said.

For Grant, the best sense that pet owners can use to gauge the weather is common sense.It is OK for pet owners to let their animals outside in below-freezing weather to attend to nature's imperatives or to take them for a quick walk, she said. However, it is never permissible to leave animals inadequately sheltered outside or even inside if they are housed in a cement floored garage with no blankets or heavy rugs, according to Grant.

"If they sit down on the cold cement, they might as well be lying down in the snow," Grant said.

In special cases, what may seem unreasonable behavior to people may seem quite reasonable to animals bracing themselves against the cold.

Last Thursday, during the coldest afternoon of the week, officer Patrick Buden responded to a complaint from a resident on Woodland Street who asked police to deal with a stray yellow Labrador retriever that jumped into her car when she opened the door, according to police reports.

"Upon my arrival the dog was sitting comfortably in the passenger seat," Buden wrote in his report. "Dog was very friendly and complied with simple commands. Took the dog to the pound--provided food and water. Dog very happy," the report read.

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