Video at the link.
Posted on 08/15/2009 6:48:43 AM PDT by csvset
A Bakersfield woman says she has been hounded by county animal control officers to license her dog.
Funny thing is, the pooch officials were so concerned about is a stuffed animal.
Dottie Elkin lives by herself in a quaint home in south Bakersfield.
For the past few months the 83-year old says she's hated getting the mail, due to letters she's receiving from the Kern County Animal Control Department.
"I told them I do not have a dog, it's a stuffed dog," Elkin said.
That's right, Elkin has a stuff "guard dog" named Wolf, keeping watch at her front door.
For the last six months she's been getting letters from animal control asking her to license the dog or face a $200 fine.
"I laughed, and told all the neighbors around here it's stupidity," Elkin said.
Kern County Animal Control Director, Guy Shaw admits a mistake was made.
Shaw says officers with the department's Public Education and Enforcement Team were looking for unlicensed dogs when they saw "Wolf" in the doorway of Elkin's home and noticed the dog didn't have any tags.
"We sent her letters, it was all a mistake," said the very sheepish county official. Shaw says Elkin won't have to pay any fines.
Video at the link.
And now, thanks to the publicity, “Wolf” is basically useless for its intended purpose (to make thugs think she has a dog) for at least a while.
Then what you do is install a motion detector aimed at the porch that triggers an audio playback of the soundtrack of a huge dog barking aggressively.
I’m going to have my dog stuffed when he kicks the bucket...Should be lots of fun.
BEWARE!! The TAXING AUTHORITIES are peering in your front door, looking for ways to separate you from your money. Gives one a warm, secure sort of feeling, doesn’t it??!!
The really annoying part of this is I have never known of anyone getting their dog back because it was picked up and the license tag was used to identify and contact the owner.
I'd sick this dog on 'em!
Tags can be important. San Luis Obispo County is to the west of Kern County and is a rabies county. When I was bitten by a dog the police were able to determine that the dog had had proper rabies shots from the tags. If they had not been able to do so, I would have faced rabies shots as a default.
On another occasion, my father's (diabetic) dog got off her leash and ran away and he was able to have her returned because of her tags.
So there are two examples of the usefulness of dog tags in that part of California for you.
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