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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us May 22, 2006 Activist tethered to law change Barbara Rosen, right, dressed like a Dalmatian talks to , Kristen Beck of Medford, left, Dave Caldwell from San Francisco about Ashland’s leash law during a petition drive on the Plaza on Saturday. Orville Hector | Daily Tidings Animal rights advocate protests on Plaza on leash By Alan Panebaker Ashland Daily Tidings When it comes to lobbying for animal rights, Ashland’s Barbara E. Rosen plays the part. Dressed in a modified Dalmatian outfit that she made out of a child’s costume, Rosen chatted with passersby on the Plaza Saturday and Sunday, looking for people to sign a petition for a tethering ordinance in the City of Ashland. Rosen said she wants the city to consider an ordinance making it illegal for owners of animals to tie them to their houses unattended. “It’s obvious that it’s cruel to chain up an animal for their entire life,” Rosen said. The petite woman chained herself to a table with a sign reading “Ashland, free your canine chain gangs” and asked passersby for their support. On top of more than enough funny looks, Rosen said she has obtained about 600 signatures since she began campaigning in December. Rosen’s leash was about 15-feet long and made of rope and chain. She said most dogs are confined to a much shorter one. Rosen’s months-long campaign of carrying petition sheets and speaking at Ashland City Council meetings led to the help of retiring police chief Mike Bianca, who recently issued an e-mail to the mayor and council offering revisions to existing ordinances involving animals. Bianca’s proposed changes include limiting the amount of time a person could tether a dog to his or her home to two hours, limiting the amount of time a person could leave a dog in a car or truck and changing the city’s current ordinance that prohibits tying an animal to public property to limiting this tethering to 10 minutes or less. “This is a mind-set change for people, so it would require lots of notice and education,” Bianca wrote. Rosen also sent an e-mail to council explaining she would like to see more radical changes than Bianca officially proposed, but she was willing to compromise. Her campaign, she said, deals only with animal’s tethered to a person’s home. The activist said her campaign started as a calling after she saw a dog that was continually tied to a woman’s car on a three-foot-long chain in Southern California. When Rosen moved to Ashland from Los Angeles, she said she took that mentality of concern for chained-up animals with her. “I vowed that that was one of the things I wanted to do,” Rosen said. “I wanted to change my local law.” Along with sewing a dalmation outfit, Rosen said she has been working with animal rights groups and has tried to involve wlocal veterinarians but said most vets don’t want to get involved politically. Tucson, Ariz., and nine other cities have laws against tethering unattended animals to a home, according to www.unchainyourdog.org. Rosen would like to work to change county or state laws involving animals, but she said she would probably have better luck in a more progressive town like Ashland. For example, Oregon state law requires owners of animals to allow adequate space for exercise for domestic animals. “This is a problem with animal laws nationwide,” Rosen said. “They’re too vague.” Rosen has also written about the issue and said she contacted city councilors and the mayor. She has been relatively well-accepted in her plight, Rosen said. Most councilors told Rosen they agreed with her more or less on principle, but the problem is that the city is too busy with other business to work on modifying animal ordinances. In Rosen’s article, she quoted city councilor Kate Jackson saying, “We have to respect the voters’ position that they don’t want to fund government beyond a certain tax base. All animals need to be treated humanely, but the city already has more than enough key community issues to deal with at this time. For example, how do we deal with beggars and insulting behavior on the Plaza?” Throughout her weekend of petitioning, Rosen said she received a few negative responses, but for the most part, people were receptive to her plight. “A few people told me, ‘I don’t want another ordinance,’” she said. “I just say, ‘thank you for expressing your opinion.’” Staff writer Alan Panebaker can be reached at 482-3456 x 227 or [email protected]. . DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams