AR-News: (GA - US)Dog exiled for being overweight can return home

[Snugglezzz at aol.com]

Portly pooch gets green light to go home 

By CHRISTOPHER QUINN 
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 

 
Phil Skinner / AJC 
J.D. Dick walks Haley in November, when she was exiled for being overweight. 

Doggie kibble for everyone.

And make that a double for Haley the hound, who can return from exile without having to lose weight.

She's been hiding out in Tennessee since the condominium association in her Cobb County neighborhood threatened to fine her master, J.D. Dick, $25 a day for having a dog bigger than neighborhood covenants allowed.

The Chimney Trace association limited pets to 30 pounds. Knee-high Haley, whose daily activities were pretty much limited to eating, sleeping and playing with her toys, weighed in at a plump 40 pounds.

Haley was found out when the association forced pet owners to take their animals to a veterinarian for a weigh-in last year. It sent owners of plus-size pooches threatening letters, telling them to get rid of their pets or face fines of $25 a day.

Dick hustled Haley to his mother's house for safekeeping in late November.

"I'm going to pick her up this weekend," he said. "I didn't want her being around while [I was] dealing with all this stuff."

Dick and about five other owners of plus-size dogs lobbied association board members to hold a vote on the issue in November and December. When the board agreed, they turned to lobbying their neighbors. The votes of two-thirds of the owners of the 96 units in the neighborhood were required to approve a change in the covenants to allow dogs of any size.

Jay Lazega, the association attorney, said the necessary votes came in early this week.

"It's something the community said they don't want us to do," Lazega said Thursday. "I'm in the process of recording the new covenants now."

Ursula Bellows, the owner of 15-pound Charlie the dachshund, said she and husband Gerald voted to do away with the rule, even though it didn't affect them. "It just wasn't fair to people," she said.

But Gerald Bellows said there is still a matter to resolve. "There's nothing wrong with a dog over 30 pounds," he said. "What I'm concerned with, these people walk their dogs all over the grounds here and they [expletive] all over the ground."