The new Notice of the Urban Dog Keeping Regulation was jointly released yesterday by Yichang City Management and Administration Law Enforcement Bureau, Yichang Agricultural Bureau and Yichang Public Security Bureau. According to the rule, all dogs in the city proper shall be leashed or kept in enclosure; if one has to take his or her dog for a walk, the dog owners must carry with them their dogs’ immunization record books and have their dogs leashed by an adult. It is said the leash shall not be more than two meters long and it also highly suggests that some dogs be muzzled when going out.
As the notice said, no dog is permitted to gain access to workplaces such as government offices, enterprises, units and institutions and to public places like markets, shopping malls, restaurants, parks, plazas, schools, hospitals, etc. But the guide dogs and the assistance dogs are excluded from the rule for the sake of the blind and the disabled. And whoever doesn’t follow the rule, whether failing to provide the dog’ immunization record book or having the dog unleashed, will be faced with the penalty of treating his or her dog in the way like the stray dogs.
In addition, the rule also includes no dog shall be loosed without control; the owners shall walk their dogs in places far away from the crowd; the dogs are prohibited from disturbing the normal lives of the senior, the disabled, the pregnant and the children; the phenomenon that a crowd of people gather around their dogs is forbidden to prevent dogs from barking incessantly (dogs, it seems, love to bark angrily when crowded together) and from spreading diseases from one dog to another; the dogs’ droppings shall be cleaned up immediately.
And a special committee will be set up by these three departments dealing with the regulating of dog keeping behavior and capturing the stray dogs, dogs which might have rabies, and street dogs. For example, the dog owner will receive a warning from the public security department if complaints about his or her dog disturbing other’s normal life; if any further complaints are lodged against the owner after the warning is given, or the dog keeper has intimidated the complainants by cutting his or her dog loose, the public security department will fine the dog owner between two hundred RMB and five hundred RMB. Moreover, if the dog has injured other people, the rule allows police to detain the dog keeper for five to ten days, coupled with the penalty of between two hundred RMB and five hundred RMB; if the consequence is less severe, the dog owner will be detained for no longer than five day with a fine of no more than five hundred RMB.
And Yichang City Management and Administration Law Enforcement Bureau also told the reporter that the refusal of the dog owners to pick up or get rid of their dogs’ droppings in public places, might give rise to the warning or even the penalty of between ten RMB and two hundred RMB. Apart from that, if the dog owners miss the vaccination for their dogs under the animal epidemic planning, the agricultural (animal husbandry and veterinary) department has right to urge the dog owners to have their dogs vaccinated promptly. Still, anyone can dial the hotline 12345 to complain against the dog owners who have failed to abide by the rule.
（Reporter Yang Chunyan, Correspondent Hu Kai）