Seeing that their recently-passed Animal Control ordinance was unfair in parts, the city of Fort Dodge, Iowa, immediately removed two problematic provisions: The limit on the number of pets residents could own and the requirement that dogs be fenced or leashed at all times, even on their owner’s property.   See?   Now that’s how you work with your community instead of against it.

Pet limit laws have gained in popularity of late as pet hoarding has been reported on more and more in the media.   What animal advocates, the public, and sometimes even politicians fail to realize is that pet hoarding is a mental health issue, not a political issue.   Pet hoarding is often a symptom of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and as such, its sufferers aren’t going to magically stop hoarding pets just because a pet limit law has been passed; they need real, medical and psychological intervention.  

Seems Fort Dodge already understood that just because people have multiple pets it doesn’t mean they’re automatically hoarders.   Now with no limit law, residents of Fort Dodge can give more homeless animals a home, within reason of course.   And that’s just it.   Perhaps Fort Dodge has realized, like more and more communities are, that the more nanny-state legislation you pass, the more nanny-state legislation you have to pass.  

It’s kind of like with kids.   The more respect and responsibility you allow them to have within reason, the more responsibility they will be able to assume.   Nanny them like helicopter parents, however, and you will more than likely always have to nanny them.  

Are you listening Waterloo, Iowa?   Because I think you could learn a little something from Fort Dodge.