Islip Town bill eyes dog-tethering ban

Dog owners in the Town of Islip might soon be barred from tethering their animals if it would endanger the animal.

Legislation sponsored by Councilwoman Trish Bergin Weichbrodt would make it illegal to tie a dog to a fixed object for extended periods of time.

The town board scheduled a public hearing and vote on the resolution for its April 5 board meeting, Bergin Weichbrodt said.

"We needed something in our code to protect these animals," she said. "They can't be fastened to a fixed structure to the point where it affects their well-being."

The councilwoman was inspired to suggest the legislation, introduced at last week's board meeting, after her office received several calls last month about a dog being tied to a tree in East Islip, she said. She visited the dog and said it was indeed restrained and forced to eat and defecate in the same area.

"It was a very troubling and disturbing sight," she said.

Bergin Weichbrodt said she researched dog tethering rules across the nation and used language from prior legislation to draft a resolution for Islip. More than a dozen states have adopted anti-tethering legislation, she said, adding she has begun lobbying state legislators to ban dog tethering throughout New York.

The addition to town code would ban tethering that endangers a dog's health or safety, limits its ability to get food and water, leaves it without adequate shelter or limits its movement such that it urinates or defecates in the same area it is eating, drinking and lying down.

Roy Gross, chief of department of the Suffolk Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said his organization supports the resolution because tethering dogs makes them aggressive and can be deadly if they get tangled.

"They are deprived of socialization," he said. "It's wrong. . . . It's horrible."

At last week's meeting, the board also voted to create a sick bank program, proposed by Bergin Weichbrodt, through which town employees may donate sick days to other town employees who become sick with a life-threatening illness or because of an accident.

Employees who want to donate sick or vacation days place them in a "bank" from which other employees, who become critically ill or injured, may withdraw them. A committee of six town employees will review applications from individuals wishing to withdraw from the bank, Bergin Weichbrodt said.

According to a town spokesman, 16 employees have already expressed interest in donating their days to the bank, which became active last Friday.

Bergin Weichbrodt said she modeled the program on a similar program at JetBlue Airways after her sister became ill with cancer. "I think it's a nice way to help each other," Bergin Weichbrodt said.