(a) The Community Service Officer shall patrol the City and, on view, shall impound any dog found running at large, except when the dog is lawfully engaged in hunting and accompanied by an owner or handler. Upon impounding a dog, the Community Service Officer shall use all reasonable means to ascertain its owner and, having ascertained the owner, shall notify him that the dog has been impounded. Upon payment of any impounding fee, the owner may reclaim the dog.
(1979 Code 93.03)
(b) The Community Service Officer shall cause a citation to be served on the owner, keeper, harborer or person having control of the animal. The person so cited may pay a waiver of twenty dollars ($20.00) for the first offense or forty dollars ($40.00) for the second offense at the Police Department within seventy-two hours. However, any subsequent offense shall not be so waived and shall be punished as provided in this chapter. Any person not paying such waiver shall be summoned to Municipal Court.
(Ord. 1990-135. Passed 4-26-90.)
(c) If an owner of an impounded dog is unknown or cannot with reasonable diligence be ascertained, the Community Service Officer shall turn the dog over to such suitable pound for safekeeping as may be designated by the Director of Public Safety and shall notify the Chief of Police of a description of the dog, the place where seized and the place where impounded. The dog shall be kept housed and fed for three days for the purpose of redemption, unless immediate humane destruction of the dog is necessary because of disease or injury.
(1979 Code 93.03)
(d) Subsequent to the Community Service Officer's attempt to notify the owner of an impoundment, whether such actual notice has been made or not, subsequent to a period of not less than three days, such dog may be destroyed in accordance with Ohio R.C. 715.23 and the terms of this section.
(e) The Community Service Officer shall direct the owner, keeper, harborer or person having charge of any unlicensed or unvaccinated dog to immediately proceed to comply with county licensing and state rabies inoculation laws and, upon the failure of the person to comply within seventy-two hours, to cause the person to appear in Municipal Court.
(Ord. 1985-164. Passed 5-9-85; Ord. 2007-116. Passed 6-14-07.)