With the new year, there are two particular areas that should prove interesting and will have the public weigh-in on them.
First: When it warms up will the mosquito infestation return?
Certainly the mosquitoes will return as they always do, but the super swamp breed is what we are hoping not to see anymore. Obviously, most mosquitoes never got to feed — there were too few hosts for all of them to feed. I saw landing counts of 80 mosquitoes per minute — and that was just in the driveway. I believe we will get back to our normal breed of mosquitoes that were driven away by the super variety. Time will tell.
Second: With the horrendous dog attack in Marietta, the commissioners have stated they want to do something about controlling dogs.
The Board of Health endorsed registration as the first step and although this has been presented three times, no action was forthcoming. Some have discussed something like what Lumberton has, which controls pit bulls (insurance, enclosures, etc.). Unfortunately that has nothing to do with the attack in question as they were extremely large Rottweilers and would not have been addressed by their rules.
Current county rules state an animal is declared vicious or dangerous if it killed or caused life-threatening injuries; bites or caused physical harm through bites to a person; attempted to bite or cause physical harm through bites to a person; or injured, maimed or killed any pet or domestic livestock. Extenuating circumstances are taken into account, such as was the dog protecting something, was it off his property, etc. All that is to say it is hard to ban a breed and think that you have addressed the problem.
The dogs that account for the worst bites are your usual suspects: chows, Rottweilers, pit bulls, German shepherds, Doberman Pinscher, Great Danes, huskies — basically all large dogs. But which breeds actually bite the most? Dachshunds, Cihuahuas, Jack Russells, Yorkshire terriers and cocker spaniels. But on many lists the No. 1 biter is Laboradors.
So how do you control so many breed? It comes back to responsible pet ownership. And the first step in that is establishing ownership.
It should prove to be a very contentious year.
