Amending Article II, Section 93 of the Melose Code of Ordinances to allow for a licensing and inspection process for kennel licensing in Melrose.

Transcript (~27 min @ 18:44)

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▶ 18:22 Elizabeth Kowal: So in front of us is ID number 2026-1530. Amendment Article 2, Section 93 of the Melrose Code of Ordinances to allow for a licensing and inspection process for kennel licensing in Massachusetts. So, the Director of Health and Human Services, Anthony Chu, is here to speak on that.

▶ 18:50 Speaker 5: Thank you for having me tonight. I just wanted to give a quick introduction to why we're looking at this part of the ordinance. So, this is based on Ollie's Law, which was first enacted in September 2024. This highlighted a statewide oversight in terms of kennel safety and kennel inspections requirements. This has been done in partnership with MDAR, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. We are looking to adopt regulations statewide, related to having the same standards and enforcement for all kennels and different types. We recently hired an animal control officer. It's been going very well. We've been able to work with our dog owners here in the city to do work on bite reports and making sure they have the information they need. The next step would be to implement a process for licensing of kennels. And so currently, the city of Melrose has a special license through the city council that would allow for the licensing of three or more dogs. But this does not include the different types of kennels that we generally see, which we can cover, including a personal kennel, a commercial boarding or training kennel, or domestic charitable corporation kennel. So before the city council tonight, there is a proposed amendment to the current city code that includes the three major types of kennels that we see, and I'm happy to answer any questions relating to these. Thank you.

▶ 20:23 Speaker 2: Any questions from the committee?

▶ 20:27 Bradley Freeman: President Freeman. Thank you very much, Director Chu. I appreciate you being here, appreciate all the work that went into this. I do want to start just by asking one question based on the public comment we just heard. Is the requirement for the three different vaccinations, is that tied into state law, or is that best practices or something Melrose would like to see moving forward? So it's not required by state law, and one of the amendments to the proposed amendment that I would like to suggest is that we might strike bordetella from the required vaccinations list. As we can see in Section 3, Subsection I, it says, "All dogs within any commercial kennel shall have current vaccinations for rabies, distemper, bordetella." And it says also, "If in the opinion of the Melrose Animal Control Officer or Director of Public Health we can require additional vaccinations." Should there be an issue if we see some sort of uptick of bordetella and we receive any kind of guidance officially from MDAR that would require us or that would be a best practice for us to require it in the future, we may consider that. But for now, I know that rabies and distemper is a pretty standard set of vaccinations that are required, and we would be okay with having just rabies and distemper as the required vaccinations. Okay. Thank you. I'll plan to make a motion or someone can make a motion later on to that effect. Another question I do have is, in looking at the three types of kennels, personal, commercial, and domestic, I do think it obviously all ties back to Mass general law, which is the overarching authority here. I do think it tends to be a little confusing for folks referencing the ordinance or bouncing back and forth. I know you've done FAQs on the Board of Health and Health Department website for other issues like this. Would there be something like that for residents to know, I have three dogs, I have four dogs, this is what I need, or this is what I don't need, maybe I'm fostering a dog or something like that? Absolutely. Yeah. So, with the evolving guidance from MDAR as well as locally, I think it'd be in our best interest to release a frequently asked questions document that would cover all three types of kennels, and possible questions that might arise. So we'd be happy to generate that afterwards. Thank you. And my last question is, as it relates to homeowners who are establishing kennels in their house. Yes. Is there any requirement under the current zoning in Melrose that regulates that in addition to their need to get a license through this process? Are they able to start kennels in their houses? Yeah. So that's something that we have talked about. I believe if you're starting a kennel, that would be considered commercial use. We would have to work with the zoning board to see whether or not that would be allowed in their current zoning districts. There's also, on top of that requirement in Section 5, resident complaints. There's also a section should that process go through, there's also recourse for residents in the area. 25 residents may file a petition with the mayor, with attention to the Board of Health to express concerns with that. And that's actually a state law required by MDAR to allow for that process. If it's okay with the chair, I would like to make the motion on the vaccine policy, and then we can open up for discussion. So at this time, I will make a motion to amend Section 3, Subsection 1 by striking, "All dogs within the commercial kennel shall have current vaccinations for rabies, distemper, and bordetella," and replace that with, "All dogs within any commercial kennel shall have current vaccinations for rabies and distemper."

▶ 23:53 Speaker 2: Is there a second?

▶ 23:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll second.

▶ 24:02 Speaker 2: All those in favor?

▶ 24:04 Speaker 4: Point of order. Should we be on discussion of that?

▶ 24:06 Speaker 2: Oh, yes. Councilor Van Vorst.

▶ 24:11 Kimberly Vandiver: I guess on discussion, I wouldn't support such an amendment. I think the large percentage of dogs that are currently vaccinated is likely keeping the numbers down, and I'm happy to entertain more information before the next meeting, but at this time, I wouldn't vote for that amendment.

▶ 24:31 Maya Jamaleddine: If you don't mind explaining for us and for the people and the public any side effect if this vaccine was required.

▶ 24:45 Speaker 5: Not that I'm aware of that there's any life-threatening or any kind of quality of life issues with the vaccine side effects. The reason we are requiring rabies and distemper, those are pretty serious conditions for dogs to get. Bordetella is pretty common as a vaccination for most places, and a lot of private kennels do require that. But this is meant as a minimum requirement for kennels, and so many kennels that we work with or that we're going to be working with, we've spoken to. A lot of them already require bordetella. That's a choice that they can make at their kennel. But at this time, rabies and distemper are the two that we're most concerned about, so that's why we're requiring those.

▶ 25:26 Maya Jamaleddine: Any of the neighboring towns or cities have adopted or required this vaccine?

▶ 25:36 Speaker 5: We are still working with our two neighboring towns, Stoneham and Wakefield, to pass changes to meet the requirement. Neither of which we have finished passing on this, so this will be our first community to move forward with this.

▶ 25:48 Maya Jamaleddine: Well, I'm just trying to find a reason not to adopt or make it a requirement for this vaccine. So what would be any reason that this should not be a requirement?

▶ 26:06 Speaker 5: There's no real public health reason. There are other vaccinations and other medical provisions for dogs that we don't explicitly list here as required before boarding. There's no real public health reason as to not require it. But rabies and distemper are the ones that we are focused on. But bordetella is one of the other ones that you can vaccinate for. We do generally recommend that if you can, you vaccinate your pet for all those conditions, including bordetella, but it's not something that we would require necessarily.

▶ 26:39 Speaker 6: Okay. Thank you.

▶ 26:41 Manjula Karamcheti: I guess sort of along those lines of questioning, even though I made the second. What I think I'm curious about, maybe this is in line with what Councilor Demaldien is asking. Is there any risk to dogs of getting the vaccine, and is that why people wouldn't do it? Or would people not do it because there's a financial impact, and that's why people choose not to get the kennel cough? I'm just trying to get a better understanding of

▶ 27:12 Speaker 1: why it is not

▶ 27:18 Speaker 1: something that we would want to require. I think. What are the impacts?

▶ 27:22 Speaker 5: Not that I'm aware of. There's no evidence that bordetella vaccine is harmful to dogs. I think there might be questions about whether or not it prevents-- Generally, as a theory, vaccines are not meant to necessarily prevent animals from getting the disease. It is meant to decrease the amount of serious side effects that they could get after getting the condition. So our recommendation is always to get as many vaccinations to cover as many things that are known. We At this time, we don't think it would be required to include bordetella, but that's not something that... We would still recommend that they get it.

▶ 28:02 Manjula Karamcheti: Do you have any sense of, and it's totally okay if you don't, the percentage of dog owners whose dogs get the kennel cough vaccine? Because I guess for our companies, for the businesses who have kennels, they would have to turn away dogs who didn't have the kennel cough vaccine, and that would directly impact their businesses as well as families whose dogs then couldn't be cared for. So- Totally ... I guess that's just I'm curious if you have a sense of this. Is there any data around that?

▶ 28:39 Speaker 5: I don't have any on hand right now. I know bordetella vaccine is very, very common. So I don't have that data right now, but I would say the vast majority of the kennels that we work with do require them as an internal policy.

▶ 28:54 Speaker 1: Thank you.

▶ 28:57 Speaker 2: Yep. Council Chen.

▶ 29:00 Speaker 3: Thanks.

▶ 29:03 Jason Chen: You are our health professional here, and- ... I have not even heard of bordetella before-

▶ 29:08 Speaker 5: Yes

▶ 29:09 Speaker 3: ... about 15 minutes ago. So-

▶ 29:10 Speaker 5: More commonly known as kennel cough. Yeah

▶ 29:12 Jason Chen: ... I think the data we need before we vote on this is to look at the correlation between vaccination rates and how much infection rates happen, and then when you have infection rates, what percentage of those are serious, and if you have more vaccinations, if those become less serious. And so if the case is that it's never serious and it's not worth the cost burden on people to have to go through this extra thing, and there's really no benefit, then I could see, okay, we just take it off the table and there's no real benefit. But if there is some benefit to having more vaccinations, even if it's small, then we have to weigh do we want to make everybody or a lot of people do this as a requirement to get their dogs kenneled, and then it prevents a few, I don't know, it might even be less than 1% cases of becoming serious. Or if it's a couple hundred dogs, it might be one dog every couple of years, right? So- Sure ... I think maybe that would help us figure out the actual policy implications of doing or not doing. So maybe we could have that before the committee vote?

▶ 30:17 Speaker 5: Yes, we can absolutely do that. I might have already said this before, but the reason that I was comfortable with moving forward by striking bordetella from the requirements was because we don't generally see-- Again, we can get more data on this. We don't generally see kennel cough being a major health issue that lasts a long time for dogs. So that's why it's not sometimes considered life-threatening. That's why we didn't include it.

▶ 30:40 Speaker 2: Anyone else?

▶ 30:42 Elizabeth Kowal: I have a question. Yeah. Is kennel cough dangerous to humans?

▶ 30:47 Speaker 5: Not that I'm aware of, no.

▶ 30:50 Speaker 2: Rabies is, however.

▶ 30:51 Speaker 5: Rabies is very much so. And distemper- And distemper is the other one? Distemper.

▶ 30:55 Elizabeth Kowal: Distemper is the other one that's dangerous to humans, correct? Correct. Yes. So people can choose by themselves whether or not to give their dogs these shots. There are some that are dangerous to humans. Bordetella is not. It's not. It is restricted to the dog community. That's correct. And so what you're saying is people can also choose to work with or not work with kennels who either require this or don't. If people are afraid of that, they can choose to not work with a kennel that- That's correct ... doesn't require it. Right. So all that we would be doing is putting, I'm going to use the word burden, on kennels that may not require it and not giving people that choice about whether or not to do business or not do business or vaccinate or not vaccinate their dogs for something that's actually not, really from what I'm understanding, certainly not a threat to humans- ... and a minor, I'm not going to use the word minor, but a smaller threat, a less dangerous threat to dogs.

▶ 31:48 Speaker 5: Yes. Is that correct? That would be correct, yes.

▶ 31:51 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Councilor Marolda. Thank you. Actually, that's why I need to ask this question. If one of the businesses, even if we pass this amendment, decided that they wanted to make it a requirement for their shop- Yes ... would it be against the law or-

▶ 32:09 Speaker 5: Absolutely not

▶ 32:10 Speaker 2: ... they have the right to make that requirement?

▶ 32:11 Speaker 5: They do. Yep. So this is very much a baseline minimum. This is at least what you have to do. You can require above and beyond, especially for other kennels, you can require bordetella as a prerequisite. That's absolutely allowed.

▶ 32:24 Elizabeth Kowal: All right. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else on... Councilman.

▶ 32:27 Kimberly Vandiver: I guess to that point, though, a business, as kind of was discussed here, a business may not want to require something because that may turn away some customers, right? So it might be something that the business is not incentivized to require extra vaccinations, right? They would really have- Sure ... to have a pretty strong opinion on it to do that. So, I don't know. It might be something better legislated at the local level. Although I'm hearing what people are saying, that this is relatively minor, not a huge health risk. My other question is, I believe, did you say there's one other business in Melrose-

▶ 33:04 Speaker 5: That we are aware of, yep

▶ 33:05 Kimberly Vandiver: ... that have given any feedback along these lines or?

▶ 33:07 Speaker 5: I know that this other business does require bordetella shots for their clients before boarding. They have indicated that they will continue to require it after this passes, regardless if we require it or not. Okay. Thank you. And just for the record, we do very much suggest that dogs get fully vaccinated for everything that's possible right now, so.

▶ 33:31 Speaker 2: Anybody else?

▶ 33:33 Elizabeth Kowal: All right. We have a motion to amend on the floor with a second. So with no further discussion, all those in favor to amend? Aye. Aye.

▶ 33:45 Speaker 2: Aye. All those opposed?

▶ 33:47 Speaker 4: Nay.

▶ 33:50 Elizabeth Kowal: We will amend it. It is passed, so we will ask you to amend it and

▶ 33:55 Speaker 2: bring it back to us. Thank you.

▶ 33:58 Kimberly Vandiver: Wait. One more. What was the vote count?

▶ 34:00 Speaker 2: It was four to one. You want- You voted yes? Okay. Thank you.

▶ 34:06 Speaker 1: Okay. I have some other questions.

▶ 34:09 Elizabeth Kowal: Okay. Now we are back to the actual ordinance at hand. Yes. Councilor Vanderberg was first in the queue for the overall ordinance.

▶ 34:21 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay, great. So other comments and questions I had. So just wanted to state for the record that this is a change from previously we required special permission for people after three dogs. Now this would be after four dogs- Correct ... when they get the fifth dog. And previously the additional permission to get the fourth dog was granted by the city council. Now this will move to the city clerk.

▶ 34:48 Speaker 5: That's correct, I believe. Yes.

▶ 34:50 Kimberly Vandiver: So just wanted to put that change out there on the record. I don't have a problem with that. And then there were a few kind of just markup things in the ordinance that I noticed. So there are three types of businesses that are in this new ordinance for Melrose, the personal kennel, the commercial boarding or training kennel, and the domestic charitable corporation. And there are two other ones in your memo that are not called out here, the veterinary kennel and the commercial breeder kennel. Yes. So one thing I was-- I'll kind of go through all these and then maybe make one collective motion, but I was thinking that we should amend this just to be very clear, and if those two types of kennels are not permitted, just call that out in that list. Is that the case that we don't intend to permit those types of kennels or might be in the future?

▶ 35:41 Speaker 5: That's something that we could discuss in the future. I think currently we have no information that those exist right now, so we're not looking to include those. I think commercial breeder kennels also come with a host of other conditions that we'd have to look into more closely. So for now, we wouldn't look to allow that.

▶ 36:03 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay, great. And then in A and B, there's a couple places where we talk about six months and where we talk about 13 weeks, and I was wondering if we should change one of those to be consistent. Let me see where exactly that was.

▶ 36:22 Speaker 5: It looks like section A1, six months old or older. Is that correct?

▶ 36:26 Kimberly Vandiver: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So A1, six months or older, and that's as well in B2, each dog over six months. But then we also talk about in B2, 13 weeks. So I just wasn't sure if it would make sense to change. I guess what I would probably change is I'd change A1 to be 13 weeks, three months. Because it looks like we want them to register once they're 13 weeks, and then they get the rabies certificate when they're three months presumably because they can't get it right away. Is that-

▶ 37:07 Speaker 4: Is that the case?

▶ 37:10 Speaker 5: I believe so. Actually, if I'm reading that correctly, I think that might have been the reverse. So we generally currently require all dogs to be licensed after six months. Okay. And then I think the reason we kept six months as the registration requirement and then the section B, the personal kennel for 13 weeks or older, I think dogs can be boarded at 13 weeks generally in the industry. So that's why we included it at 13 weeks instead of the six months. So I think that's generally earlier than the six-month time period. That's why we lowered it for that one.

▶ 37:45 Kimberly Vandiver: Oh, okay. So within a personal kennel, it's six months that they have to register, but...

▶ 37:52 Speaker 5: No, I'm sorry. I think the personal kennel is 13 weeks or older. That's generally shorter than the six months, because it's likely that people can board dogs under six months.

▶ 38:07 Kimberly Vandiver: Mm-hmm. But the personal kennel, that's in a house, right?

▶ 38:12 Bradley Freeman: Can I-- Point of clarification for the council member, if you don't mind. What I think it's trying to refer to is the 13 weeks or older is to allow puppies to be born into a house- Uh-huh ... and then given up for adoption within 13 weeks, and those wouldn't be required to be registered or clarified as a personal kennel. And then the six months is to allow someone to adopt a dog at the general 12 to 13 week period, and then have a little bit of a grace period before you register said dog within by the time the dog reaches the age of six months,

▶ 38:42 Kimberly Vandiver: was my reading of it. Okay. Yeah, and that was actually my other question around that. So the consistency between the numbers, and then I know that is around the time period that dogs go. Would we want to actually relax that to 16 weeks because some dogs might not get transferred to their new home right at 13 weeks or something like that? I don't think you would ever come down and say, "This dog's 13 and a half weeks-" Right. I see. "... and this dog's out of line." But, just to give people the leeway if they need it.

▶ 39:06 Speaker 5: I see no reason not to increase that by three weeks. If we do 16 weeks, that could give it some leeway as well. That wouldn't be a problem, I don't think.

▶ 39:14 Kimberly Vandiver: Yeah. Okay. Sure. That sounds fine to me. I'd be happy to hear other councilors discuss. I don't have a strong viewpoint on exactly how many weeks. I just was noticing those kind of comparative numbers there.

▶ 39:31 Speaker 4: And then in 3B-

▶ 39:35 Elizabeth Kowal: Excuse me. Can I speak? You can't. Public- There's a- Public comment is actually over. But thank you.

▶ 39:44 Kimberly Vandiver: Oh. So the last thing in three, so number iii, roman numeral little four, "Kennel license may not be used in lieu of individual dog licenses. All dogs in a private kennel must have individual dog license and tag." I believe, should that be personal kennel in that specific

▶ 40:05 Speaker 4: instance? Just a minor thing, but if so, I'll propose that amendment.

▶ 40:11 Speaker 5: Can you repeat what section?

▶ 40:12 Kimberly Vandiver: Yeah. It's letter B, number three, little roman numeral four.

▶ 40:21 Speaker 5: Kennel license may not be used in lieu of individual dog licenses. Private kennel must have a...

▶ 40:31 Speaker 5: Was the proposed change the wording, "All dogs in a private kennel must have individual dog-"

▶ 40:36 Kimberly Vandiver: Yeah, I was just proposing private becomes personal. Is that what we're calling that type of kennel?

▶ 40:45 Speaker 4: I could be wrong.

▶ 40:48 Speaker 5: No, I believe that refers to... License may not be used in... Private kennel must have...

▶ 41:02 Speaker 5: I believe it does refer to the personal kennel, but I believe that also, even if they are staying in a commercial boarding or training kennel, that would not suffice. They would still have to have their individual dog licenses. So we can change the private to personal.

▶ 41:21 Speaker 4: Okay.

▶ 41:23 Speaker 5: Yeah. I see what you're saying, because this would require anybody with four or more dogs, if they have them, they would have to have their own individual license. Correct. That's right. So private should be personal there.

▶ 41:32 Speaker 4: Okay. So

▶ 41:36 Kimberly Vandiver: I'll end my comment and see if anyone has comments on that comment, and then I'll come back and propose those amendments. If that's what the committee would like to do.

▶ 41:45 Speaker 2: Next in line is actually Councilor Karen Shady.

▶ 41:51 Manjula Karamcheti: Oh, beautiful. Well, first I want to say thank you because we had a long conversation when this first came across my desk. So really appreciated the time you gave me there. I think something that you'd mentioned in our phone conversation is that Ollie's Law actually doesn't come with a lot of specific recommendations from MDAR. And I think the one I would love for you to speak to a little bit is around the numbers that the bigger boarding kennels can have. Sure. And why I would love you to speak about it a little and what your approach will be is, Ward 1, where I am, actually has one of these boarding kennels, and it has a wonderful reputation. And has a certain amount of dogs that are taken in to be a profitable business, and the changing of those numbers can actually really impact businesses. And so I'm just wondering what your approach will be now in terms of those kennels, but also, how will you work with kennels in the future if MDAR does come out with specific numbers that kennels are allowed to have per square footage?

▶ 43:12 Speaker 5: Sure. So currently, we have been in touch with our kennels here in Melrose. I think they do a wonderful job. This is kind of an iterative process for us, so we are still trying to figure out what the best practices are. There are general guidelines through MDAR. There are general guidelines through animal societies out there. So we are looking at, as a whole, at all these businesses, what their current practices are, and based on that, what can each business support safely? Some of the things we've been talking about in terms of ratios have been somewhere in the ballpark of 1 to 10 to 1 to 20 staff to dog ratios. Again, the reason we don't have that set in stone right now is because we are first waiting to see if MDAR will release more strict guidelines for us. And should that be the case, then we will have to adhere to those as a minimum standard. But in the meantime, this gives us, an animal control officer, time to do research, working with our kennels, and hopefully causing as little disruption as possible to current businesses. So our job is to both protect the safety of the clients and their dogs as well as working with our businesses and making sure they're sustainable.

▶ 44:23 Manjula Karamcheti: Thank you. I really appreciate that- Absolutely ... in terms of your philosophy and stance on how to move forward. I have one other question that's a little weird- That's okay ... so forgive me. But the ordinance really is around kennels. But often in Melrose and other places, I'm a big hiker, so- Yes ... depending on where we're going, there's also dog walkers who have a lot of dogs that are- ... personal, private businesses. I'm just curious if this expands at all into that arena, or would that be just a completely separate thing? Yeah. Because sometimes you wonder how safe it is for one person to be walking 10 to 12 dogs- Absolutely. Yeah ... around other people and that kind of thing. So I'm just curious about that.

▶ 45:13 Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a really good question. That is something that we have received some questions about. This would not necessarily expand to that. That's more of a temporary stay when they have a different amount of dogs, depending on how many they're walking. That is something that we would probably like to address in the future in terms of safety. I've anecdotally seen people walking 10 to 12 dogs going to the dog park. It seems pretty difficult to control all of them, getting them all together. So that's something that we would have to do a little more research on. I don't know how many ordinances there are out there in other seasoned towns, but that would probably be a good place to start. And definitely working with our dog walking community to see what the practices are currently and what some barriers might be to that, so yeah.

▶ 45:59 Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I'm all set.

▶ 46:00 Speaker 2: Okay. Appreciate it. President Freeman.

▶ 46:03 Bradley Freeman: Point of order. We do have an appropriations meeting that's supposed to start about 7:30, so I'm making a motion for a brief recess to allow ANO to start, and then we can resume this conversation.