Wine, Weed, and Wolfdogs? Yes, McMinnville might soon be known as a special place for man’s oldest friend: the wolf…dog. It’s a hybrid, I guess.
Whether you’re new to Mac or just reading about our gossip online, wolfdogs have become a hot-button issue after a citizen of McMinnville’s wolfdogs escaped their enclosure and killed three local pets, two small dogs and a cat.
Adding drama to this killer local issue are the weird set of facts that have come to light thanks to adequate reporting by the News-Register and The Oregonian. First and foremost, it seems that the City of McMinnville helped contribute to this problem by adjudicating that the enclosure and fencing that was successfully being used to house the wolfdogs was deemed unacceptable and must be taken down. To make matters worse, the city gave the citizen responsible for the wolf-dog hybrids 30 days to comply but held back telling the wolf-dog-owner about the ruling for weeks. This gave the owner just days to come up with a solution before hefty fines were to be enforced.
While the individual responsible for the wolfdogs has accepted responsibility for their actions and received punishments in the form of fines and having to give up two of the four wolfdogs, the city has maintained that they are not responsible and did nothing wrong.
However, according to a report by The Oregonian, the City Of McMinnville did admit to delaying to inform the citizen/responsible party, but also said in the report that the responsible party wouldn’t have been held to the city-imposed timeline. Something that was never relayed to the citizen, according to my reporting. If you take this at face value, this would mean that city seemingly does accept some responsibility, but made no effort to update their own ruling. In my estimation, this added pressure to the situation.
Given that the wolfdogs went on their rampage only after the enclosure/fencing was brought up to the city’s new “code”, while not as responsible as the individual owner of these wolfdogs, the City Of McMinnville has the blood of dead pets on their hands. Whether or not they want to admit it, their ruling made a neighborhood more dangerous. And if the city insists that the wolfdogs are a danger, and they seem to be, then the city NEEDS to do something more. Otherwise, they are setting up a situation in which they won’t be able to point the finger at an irresponsible owner.
No, this future situation will be of their own making, and it might be worse than just pets. What if a visiting tourist came across this animal in a neighborhood where they were renting an Airbnb? Do you think the headlines would be worse? I do.
Moreover, if the city didn’t have the knowledge necessary to rule on such a niche subject, they should have deferred to what was working instead of meddling. Instead, they seemingly took half measures in hopes that everything will be okay. Hopes and prayers only go so far.
-Andrew Brunello