Gonzales PD talks updated animal ordinance

The Gonzales City Council recently approved changes to the animal control ordinance in their Thursday, April 14 meeting.

Gonzales Police Chief Gayle Autry spoke to the Gonzales Inquirer about the changes that were made in the ordinance.

Autry said the changes were made to help Kingdom Rescue run their “Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate and Release program” for the cats in Gonzales.

“We put it in definitions for TNVR. Let's see, we had one thing that we had to take out of the nuisance clause was the cats running at large. In other words, for a cat to be a nuisance now, it's got to do more than just be walking around,” Autry said.

For the changes regarding dogs, Autry said there has been a change to included home quarantining; in the previous ordinance, it forbade home quarantine.

“If you got bitten by a dog, even if it's your own dog, it required the dog to go to be quarantined. Back then we didn't have a home quarantine in our ordinances,” Autry said.

Autry added without that ordinance, it didn’t allow them to quarantine at home. Instead, pets ha d to go immediately to the vet and it was costing people money.

“I had one gentleman whose dogs got in a fight. He was trying to break them up. Well, he was bit and it broke the skin and he had to go to the hospital. We got called. And what a lot of people were doing was it was cheaper for them to pay the citation [then pay the vet],”  Autry added.

As of right now, the city is working getting the updated ordinances onto the website so residents can look them, Autry said.