Saturday, October 12, 2013

Owner fined for walking wheelchair-bound cat without a leash

Pooh Bear the cat's front legs work fine, but his back legs don't work at all. His owner Yvonne Steel from Melbourne, Florida, has replaced those back legs with wheels. She got the little device on eBay and she calls it a wheelchair.



She takes Pooh Bear for a walk every day in a grassy area next to Wells Park. He needs the exercise for his back legs. On Tuesday Brevard County Animal Services issued her with $230 in tickets for failing to have Pooh Bear and McKenzie, a Chihuahua, on a leash, and for a rabies shot violation.

"She had been warned it was not legal. Basically, we have someone that just is not getting the fact that you have to be in control of your animal when it's off your property," said Capt. Bob Brown with Brevard County Animal Services. "That was my very first knowledge that cats could not be allowed off the leash. I wouldn't even know where to put the leash to be quite honest," said Steel.


YouTube link.

Animal services said there are no exceptions to the leash law, even for disabled animals. "Your animal could be injured. It could be hurt. It could run out in the street. It could be attacked by another animal. It's just the law that we have to follow," said Brown. "The fact there's so much crime here, they should have been looking into paedophiles, people with knives," said Steel.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When you live in a police state you can expect this kind of nonsense, and a nation that has more people in jail than any other and spies on everyone is surely a police state by any definition.

Anonymous said...

What confuses me Is that you're apparently allowed to have an outside cat that can go anywhere... but I guess if you're with it when it's outside.... you need to have it tethered to you? Because that makes legal sense.

Personally I wish everyone would keep their animals on leashes in the city, unlesz in a dog park. It makes it safer for her chihuahua too. Some other dog runs out of nowhere to crunch it, she could more easily pull it out of harm's way. Then there's my dog who was very well behaved: She got attacked 4 times by off leash dogs whos humans yelled "don't worry, they're friendly" before they stared biting on her ...so the 5th dog not on a leash that runs up to my dog- well, she was finally all "aw hell no" and attacks it first ...even though it was just an adorable husky puppy that wanted to play. The puppy was fine (just really shocked) because my dog was a crappy fighter and not much larger, but it would have been prevented if they had kept it on a leash in the area where they say to keep your dog on a leash.

Mel