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Dog
Lovers Plan Council Protest
Spartanburg
County Council is in the doghouse with some animal activists. A
group led by an animal advocate from Pennsylvania is planning to
demonstrate from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday outside the County Administrative
Office Building. Dogs
Deserve Better, a national
nonprofit that denounces the chaining of animals, had sought to
be on the agenda for County Council's Monday meeting, but it was
told that its request was too late to be added. Tammy
S. Grimes, founder of Dogs Deserve Better, also plans to announce
Monday the formation of Mothers Against Dog Chaining, an initiative
that will be under her group's umbrella. "This
is just the beginning of it," Grimes said Friday via telephone.
Grimes
said she expects Crystal Sinclair, the mother of fatal dog attack
victim Makayla Sinclair, to attend the demonstration and lend her
support to the effort. Efforts
to reach Sinclair for comment on Friday proved unsuccessful. Two
Great Danes are believed to have killed 2-year-old Makayla outside
her Roebuck home in October 2003. The dogs had been chained to a
tree in their owner's yard. The
toddler's death was the first of three fatal dog attacks that would
occur in Spartanburg County during the next two years. The
last fatality occurred last month when 4-year-old Asia Turner wandered
too close to her family's Rottweilers -- one of which was chained.
In
the weeks that followed, some County Council members expressed interest
in passing an ordinance that would restrict the amount of time a
dog could spend on a chain. But
at a meeting earlier this month, the issue did not get the support
of a majority of council members and failed to make Monday's meeting
agenda. County
Administrator Glenn Breed said his office received a request earlier
this week from the group asking to be added to Monday's meeting
agenda. The general meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. Breed
said agendas are completed and sent to council members a week in
advance, so the item came in too late to be added. County
leaders are not trying to create a "stumbling block" for
the group, he said. In
some "time-sensitive" cases, agenda items are added at
the last minute, but those typically involve deadline-related county
business, Breed said. Luke Connell can be reached at 562-7219 or luke.connell@shj.com
Dogs Deserve Better, Inc. is a 501c3 national nonprofit organization. Mothers Against Dog Chaining is currently a program of Dogs Deserve Better, and as such all donations are tax-deductible according to IRS guidelines. All funds donated to the Mothers Against Dog Chaining program will initially go into the DDB general fund account; however, they will be earmarked and used for Mothers Against Dog Chaining materials and campaigns. |
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CONTACT: Tammy
Grimes |
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