As we embarked upon tonight’s workshop we couldn’t help but feel it was going to be an pretty smooth meeting considering the fact that Billy and Kirby (and Tony too…but he doesn’t always make a mess of things) were not in attendance. Alas, it was not to last, Billy and Tony showed up late, but Kirby never found his way.

The focus of tonight’s meeting was to talk about some changes to the Animal Welfare Provisions. Councilman Donald leads the meeting by speaking of the proposed changes:

1. Keep your dog on a leash people! All the time. (Exceptions will be made for dog parks and farms).
2. Change the time a dog can be tethered from 10 hours in a day to 4 hours.
3. Encourage people to get their pets licensed by changing the fees. Yes folks if you have a cat or dog you are supposed to pay a license fee.

The head of the animal services division and an animal control officer were present to answer any questions.We think the Yokel ladies are going to offer a workshop for those county employees whom have not had the horror of being grilled by Billy and/or Kirby. Because Dear Yahweh, we hate seeing the deer in the headlights looks on these poor people’s faces when they face the unspeakable.

Without Kirby there Billy felt as though he had to do the work of two. We present to you, dear readers, a bulleted list of this evening’s highlights:

-Billy asks the very nice animal control officer how often the department issues citations to people who do not have their pets licensed. The gentleman responds one every few weeks. Billy then  replies, “So over a hundred a year.” No, the kindly man replies, somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30. Dear Fredericktonians, do we really have a council member whom is not aware of the fact that there are 52 weeks in a year? It appears that we do!

-Billy wants data and science (we know folks) to back up the claims that dogs should be on leashes or that dogs shouldn’t be tethered for hours. Billy, first of all, go out into the world and observe!  Better yet, shadow an animal control officer.  Secondly, if you want to become informed through the words, (settle down readers) peruse this article to find out all the negative effects that occur when a dog is chained up.  We sure hope The Humane Society of the United States is a good enough authority to convince ya Billy!

-Billy is only going to throw his support behind laws if we follow the new Trump mandate. You know the one that states for every new law passed we must repeal two?  What could possibly go wrong?!

-Despite being told over and over and over and over and over again that programs exist for people to get their animals spayed and neutered for free or very little cost, Billy harps on the full price cost of this necessary procedure. Not paying any mind to the fact that spaying and neutering is  beneficial to both the animal and community for a variety of reasons.

-Let’s talk about rudeness. At one point during his questioning Jerry very politely asks if he can interject. It was a pertinent point that Jerry wanted to make concerning getting some information out to the public. Any other polite human being with manners and any sense of dignity would have allowed his colleague to talk. But not Billy. He spouts, “It’s my turn!” WAAAHHH!!! Well, Jerry gets out the information and Billy continues to complain. Dude, GROW UP! PLEASE!

There’s more but the cold, or the despair is setting in and we think you get the picture. Billy is not qualified, on any quantifiable scientific measure,  to sit up on that dais. Frederick County, we screwed up (well not us, but some of y’all)! Next year we need to rid our government of this pestilence.

The changes to the animal provisions will continue to be discussed and debated. We can expect to see some official legislation some time in the future.