A Florida woman was given $230 in tickets for having both her Chihuahua and her disabled cat in its wheeled cart off leash in a grassy area next to a park.
Melbourne resident Yvonne Steele was ticketed and fined for having her animals with her but not on leashes in a grassy spot next to Wells Park on Fee Avenue in the Brevard County community.
Steele is asking whether the law should apply to her cat, and she says she did not know the animal needed to be leashed.
Pooh Bear’s front legs work normally but his back legs do not, so Steel got him a little wheeled cart on eBay and says she takes him out for a walk in the grassy area every day so he can get the beneficial exercise he needs.
“He needs the exercise for his back legs,” said Steele.
Brevard County Animal Services issued her $230 in tickets for failing to have Pooh Bear and Mackenzie ,the Chihuahua, leashed on their outings, and for a rabies shot violation.
“She had been warned that it was not legal do that,” said Bob Brown of Brevard County Animal Services. “Basically, we have someone who is just not getting the fact that you have to be in control of the animal when it’s off your property.”
“That was my very first knowledge that cats could not be allowed offleash,” said Steele. “I wouldn’t even know where to put the leash, to be quite honest.”
Animal Services officials say there are no exceptions to the leash law, even for disabled animals.
“Your animal could be injured, it could be hurt, it can run out in the street, it could be attacked by another animal,” said Brown. “It’s just the law that we have to follow.”
Steele counters, saying,” The fact that there’s so much crime here they should have been looking into pedophiles, people with knives … .”
Police say they have a video recording of Steel walking her other dogs, German shepherds, without leashes. Steel calls that a waste of police resources.
While is seems absurd to leash a disabled cat in a wheeled cart, a leash could no doubt be hooked to the cart, to a separate harness, or to the cat’s collar.
