For several towns, tethering dogs has been outlawed in order to improve the lives of animals. In Garner, the law doesn’t allow cruelty to animals, but tethering dogs has not been deemed inhumane.

The Law and Finance Committee met with police and Garner residents Apr. 15, but made no recommendation to take to the Town Council.

One Garner resident said she sees a dog chained up far away from his owner’s home everyday in all types of weather and cannot help but feel bad.

“It just breaks my heart,” she said.

A lover of dogs, the resident has two of her own and wanted to help all of Garner’s four-legged friends have a better life.

She and her husband contacted the Coalition to Unchain Dogs, an organization which started nearly three years ago in Durham and has expanded to eight chapters and has helped build nearly 450 fences to take dogs off chains and give them their own space.

The Police Dept. has one animal control officer who is tasked with all of Garner’s animal issues. The number of animals in Garner causes the officer’s duties to be mostly complaint-oriented. There is a lot of follow-up work, Sgt. Chris Clayton said.

Creating an ordinance to outlaw tethering would cause a surge in complaints she receives each day.

Clayton told the Law and Finance Committee that complaints aren’t just about tethering. In fact, most are concerning animals that do not have food, water or shelter.

Clayton also said that while a pen might seem more humane, it wouldn’t force owners to socialize their animals.

Dogs can be aggressive on a tether or in a pen.

“We’ll never fix the problem of people owning pets and not socializing them,” Clayton said.

Some have a different opinion.

Hailey Queen, a volunteer with the Coalition to Unchain Dogs, said the more than 500 dogs that have been spayed or neutered by the organization have totally different attitudes at the beginning and end of each project.

On the non-profit organization’s website (www.unchaindogs.net and www.youtube.com) there are information and videos of dogs whose temperament changed immediately.

Tiger, a dog the group built a free fence for to help the owner come into compliance with city code, sprints around inside his new pen after volunteers complete the project in one YouTube video.

One reason for the dramatic change, Queen said, is that dogs are a lot like humans with a fight or flight instinct. When dogs are chained, with no barrier around them, the opportunity to get away is gone and everything poses a threat.

While the complaint calls would increase at first, Queen said, the long-term effect would be positive and cruelty issues would decrease.

The coalition has been in Raleigh for about a year and already has built about 30 fences. Along with free fences for animals, the organization offers owners education on why it is important to take dogs off chains. The coalition also requires all participants to have their animals spayed or neutered. There is no income requirement to participate.

While the coalition does help in towns and cities where no ordinance has been set, the priority is to help dog owners come into compliance with ordinances already in place.

Some areas have ordinances, which allow tethering for up to three hours each day. Clayton said that would be difficult to monitor in Garner, especially with only one animal control officer.

The committee will meet in May to discuss the subject further.

“We certainly don’t want any animals to be hurt here,” committee member and Mayor Protem Kathy Behringer said.