Metro Health goes to the dogs

Goodness knows, I have documented my inability to convince Metro Animal Control (a subsidiary of the Metro Health Department) to respond to my reports of stray dogs in Salemtown. So, I have not been surprised to see reports coming in lately that Animal Control will not give neighborhoods relief or satisfaction from wanton strays.

The Salemtown e-list tells of unchecked strays and unreturned phone calls, even from Metro Health. Salemtown officers have invited Animal Control to business meetings, but have been jilted. Recently, the Highland Heights neighborhood association received a commitment from Animal Control to send a representative to their business meeting, and as elsewhere, no controllers showed.

Neighborhood leaders are corresponding on how to deal with Animal Control neglect, but in the meantime, the Metro Health overlords seem to be too preoccupied with running interference for an attempt to permit dogs in restaurants to concern themselves with preventing the mutts from running the streets:

[According to a proposed dogs-in-diners bill] dogs must be kept on a lease and will not be allowed on chairs, tables or other furnishings ....

"The restaurant would have to be constructed as such the dogs can enter [the outdoor dining area] without have to go through the restaurant, there can be no co-mingling of food bowls to food preparation products from the dogs to the restaurant itself," Brent Hager with the Metro Public Health Department explained. [Incorrect spelling in the original online story left unchanged]

The shame of this laughable proposal is that allowing dogs in eateries requires oversight and enforcement, which in turn require resources and administration. At a time when Metro Health officials neglect community complaints about strays and fail to muster an ambassador of good will or two to be available to neighborhood associations, their attention to the petty conveniences of canine canteenery is queer.