Unattended Tethering of Dogs Now Illegal in Rich Square
For Immediate Release:
October 2, 2024
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Rich Square’s recently passed tethering ordinance is now in effect as of October 1. The ordinance prohibits leaving dogs chained or tethered unattended outside and requires that guardians provide animal companions with adequate food, water, shelter, and veterinary care. It comes after PETA met with Rich Square Mayor Victoria Newcombe late last year to show her photographs and video clips of the appalling conditions that PETA’s field rescue team encounters daily, including neglected, dying, and dead dogs who are tethered outdoors and deprived of the most basic necessities. Many spend their lives without exercise, companionship, or even a kind word and are left in isolation on the same few square feet of space day in and day out. Chained dogs have frozen to death during cold snaps and died from heatstroke on sweltering summer days.
“Thanks to Mayor Newcombe and the town commissioners, dogs in Rich Square will be spared a lonely life and chronic neglect at the end of a chain,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA encourages residents to bring dogs indoors with the rest of the family and stands ready to help the community by providing advice on housetraining and spaying and neutering as well as other services.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
