HANSON – Kennel regulations and infield dirt for Little League baseball fields [see related story, page 12] may be among the articles on the October Town Meeting warrant. The Select Board reviewed the specifics of the two pending articles at its Tuesday, July 25 meeting.
Animal Control Officer Joseph Kenney took a bite out of explaining an article to change section of the canine control by-laws to bring kennel licensing regulations in line with state law.
Town Administrator Lisa Green said the initial discussion was requested through her office regarding changing the by-laws governing kennel licences. She said the discussion made clear who the participants are going to be and they could work toward determining if an article could be made ready for the October or possibly May Town Meeting,
“I was looking to change it from a four-dog kennel license to a five-dog kennel license,” said Select Board member David George. “You know Hanson’s a big hunting town, a lot of people in Hanson hunt with dogs.”
He noted there are two types of hunting dog – retrievers and upland game dogs.
“One’s for ducks and geese and the other’s for pheasant and quail,” he said. “I don’t hunt both .. I do ducks, so if you’re a guy that hunts both upland game and waterfowl and say, you’ve got two German short-haired pointers that you use for upland hunting and you have a Labrador retriever for your duck dog, well, at some point in time, one of those dogs is going to have to retire and you’re going to turn it into a house pet.”
He said just because a dog can’t hunt forever, does not mean owners who hunt would be willing to put a dog down for that reason, it would become a pet, George reasoned.
“Dogs are not just dogs,” Select Board member Ann Rein agreed. “They’re part of the family.”
“You might need to bring another dog in,” he said, noting it could take a year or two to train a new hunting dog. “I’m not saying that you’re going to have four dogs all the time, but you might need to cycle one in and have four dogs at one time.”
The same could be said for one of the dogs a hunter uses for upland game.
“It would be nice if somebody wanted to, they could do it legally and have four dogs without going around the system, which I’m not saying I know anybody that does …,” George said.
Kenney, who described himself as an advocate for hunting as well, said his only concern was there are already people in town who hunt, as well as those who simply own dogs as pets, and have more dogs than they’re supposed to have.
“The Chapter 140 laws that the state writes for kennel licensing requires anything over three dogs” to obtain a kennel license, Kenney said. “It’s up to three. You get the fourth dog, you have to get a kennel license. That’s a state law, even if they’re your own dogs.”
Mass. General Law is worded in a specific way, talking about owners of “less than four dogs, may elect to secure a kennel license,” Green explained. Hanson By-law, Section 7 says “any owner or keeper of four or more dogs.”
The town has gone one above what the state law says, according to Green, who added that written application to the Zoning Board of Appeals for approval is needed. The ZBA may impose certain restrictions and the Animal Control officer, who does inspections, then issues the kennel license.
“There’s a lot of steps and this is good as an open discussion for what direction to go in,” she said.
Kennel licenses also change hands along with a house when property is sold.
“I don’t think we can go above the state laws on it,” Kenney said. “What we can change is the process of getting that applicants to make the change. I think making the process as easy as possible, but I don’t think we can change the number of dogs.”
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett asked what kind of changes he was looking for, to which Kenney said his main focus was on making things simpler and faster.
George asked if that included inspecting homes to determine the number of dogs. Kenney said the house would have to be inspected to determine whether the dogs are not kept in conditions not appropriate for them as well as having the ZBA determining if your zone is appropriate for four dogs, or even more.
“It’s a good discussion, I learned a lot,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “But, unfortunately, we didn’t get anywhere.”
She suggested there is more the Select Board office needs to do in order to have a conversation on the matter, including an opinion from legal counsel as well as obtaining information on what other towns are doing.
“I must admit, I thought it was Mr. Kenney proposing this,” she said to Green. “I would appreciate in the future having a discussion about what’s being placed on the agenda like this.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said she agrees with George and Kenney that the licensing process should be made as possible for people to license their dogs so “we don’t have this weird stuff going on” because people might be trying to hide their dogs.
“It protects other townspeople … because more people would, in return, do the right thing and register those dogs.” Kenney said.
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked Green to meet with George, Kenney and someone from the ZBA to see what can be done to cut through some of the red tape involved.
“This is just an initial discussion to get a feel from the board,” Green said.