By Grant Warkentin
The Mirror
Sep 15 2006
Rural dog owners and kennel operators had better make sure their animals have lots of room to play.
The Area D regional director is considering introducing rules to set boundaries for people with large numbers of dogs on their properties. Anyone with four or more dogs will be required to abide by setbacks intended to keep dogs from bothering their neighbours.
“Although we don’t have problems with dog kennels now, we could in the future,” said Area D regional district director Brenda Leigh.
In August, Leigh said she had a chance to look over the new bylaw for the Comox Valley governing dog kennels. She liked it so much she decided to introduce a similar bylaw for Area D. There aren’t any problems now, but she wants to make sure there’s rules in place to prevent any conflicts between residents and dog kennels from coming up in the future.
“It’s a pro-active measure on my part,” she said.
With development increasing in the rural area south of Campbell River, Leigh wants to have good legislation in place before more residents start arriving. That way, there won’t be any opportunity for problems to rise up between kennel operators and people with large numbers of dogs and residents who don’t want to hear animals barking all day long.
The bylaw Leigh wants to introduce will govern both small-scale kennels – four to 10 animals – and large-scale kennels – 11 or more animals. Anyone with four or more animals will be required to have them on property 4.9 acres or larger and keep them at least 30 metres from all property lines. They will be required to keep them at least 100 metres away from any residences. They will also only be allowed to keep that many animals if they have them on property 4.9 acres or larger.
Anyone with 11 or more animals will be required to keep them 100 metres from all property lines and 150 metres from any residence. There will also be an age restriction of at least four months, Leigh said, to prevent anyone from trying to run a puppy mill.
Owners of large numbers of dogs will be required to keep them inside from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. and from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. They will also only be allowed on a property occupied by a permanent resident.
The rules will apply to people who board large numbers of dogs for clients, breed dogs for show or just have a lot of pets.
The new rules for dog kennels will be going to a public hearing Sept. 21, 7 p.m. at the Ocean Grove School.