Please read the entire post!
 
On February 21st the Humane Societies amended HB 1130: relative to the
definition of necessary shelter for dogs.
 
That amendment is as follows:
 
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AN ACT relative to penalties for failure to provide outdoor dogs with
necessary shelter.
 
New Section:
 
466:31-b Dogs tied or confined outdoors.
 
Any person who ties or confines a dog outdoors and fails to provide the
animal with access to shelter necessary to protect it from suffering or
injury due to the adverse effects of weather, or who fails to maintain
such shelter in a sanitary manner or who ties or chains the dog outdoors
in a manner likely to cause it injury or suffering shall be fined not
more than $50 for a first offense and not more than $100 or each
subsequent offense.
 
466:31-c Rulemaking:
 
The commissioner of the department of agriculture, markets and food
shall adopt rules, pursuant to RSA 541-A, relative to minimum shelter,
tethering, and sanitary conditions for dogs tied or confined outdoors.
 
The amendment was submitted at the House Environment and Agriculture
sub-committee, which discussed the amendment and voted 4-2 that it was
Inexpedient to Legislate!
 
The bill will soon go to the Full House floor for a vote and we suspect
that there will be a "floor fight".
 
NH Humane Societies, HSUS and PETA have been bombarding the NH
Representatives with uniform emails in support of the bill!
 
All of NH animal caretakers and all of your animal loving friends to call
write or email your NH Representatives urging them to vote Inexpedient to
Legislate HB 1130 as amended.
 
The fate of this bill rests solely in your hands!
 
Please contact as many of the Representatives as you can and do so this
week!
 
If you need information about Representatives please go to:
<http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ns/whosmyleg/default.asp>
 
The language in this amendment was conjured in a hasty and very poor
fashion.
 
It fails to provide the animal owner with any formal notice of
non-compliance; it fails to provide the animal owner with a specific
procedure on who and when to pay any fine.  It fails to provide specific
terms of compliance between the issuance of fines.  It fails to establish
a vehicle for the animal owner to appeal or to have the issue disposed of
in a court of law should the owner choose that course or choose not to
pay the fine.
 
A few examples:
 
If your dog is tied outside without a shelter and it is spitting rain I
can stop and fine you fifty dollars.  I drive down the road turn around,
drive by your house and see the dog still out in the rain so I issue you
another fine.  As a subsequent offense this fine is for $100.  So you
haven't finished your coffee yet and you already owe some unknown entity
$150!  You have to pay by an unspecified time and if you don't pay the
fine an unspecified result may or may not occur.  But whatever you do or
don't do you have no grounds to appeal.
 
You're driving down the road with your four dogs cross-tethered in the
back of your pickup.  It begins to rain or maybe sleet or snow.  All of
a sudden the blue lights flash and you get four fines of $50 each.  Do
you have to park the vehicle and walk your four dogs home from there so
that you don't get pulled over again for a subsequent offense?
 
You walk you dog to the corner store as you have always done.  Since you
can't bring your dog into the store you leash it to a post outside the
store and proceed to do you shopping.  Upon exiting the store an officer
issues you a fine for failure to provide shelter when the ambient
temperature is below 50 degrees.
 
Injury and suffering is addressed in the Cruelty to Animals Statute RSA
644:8.  We do not need to create confusion by having two statutes which
address the same elements.
 
Respectfully
Alicia Drakiotes
[Posted in FML issue 5163]