The village of Panama is set to remind residents of the village’s dog ordinance and rules surrounding having dogs leashed in the village. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

PANAMA — The village of Panama is looking to remind village residents of the rules around dogs and leashes when off of private property.

A question around the village having a leash law was first brought up during the June meeting, and at the July meeting an old dog ordinance that the village found was discussed, dating back to 1979.

“It says no dog shall be permitted to be at large or allowed to run at large within the village,” Mayor William Schneider said. “So basically that means, at large means off of the premises of the owner. Meaning, whenever the dog is off of the premises of the owner, it needs to have a leash.”

Schneider said the ordinance also says that the dog can be allowed to run unleashed when on someone else’s property with their knowledge and permission. The ordinance continues by saying that when at a public property, a fully licensed dog must also be leashed.

“So that basically means that we need to remind residents that while they are not on their property their dog needs to be properly leashed and in control,” Schneider said. “And we also need to remind people that they need to pick up any type of droppings that is left.”

Members of the board said they have all had problems with other people’s dogs’ droppings left on their properties.

In connection with this, village clerk Lisa Ireland said a few days before the meeting she and other local clerks received an email from the county about an online Docu-Pet program being set up to help locate missing dogs and reunite them with their owners along with helping people to have an easier time getting their dogs licensed. In another email from Chautauqua County Sheriff Jim Quattrone, Ireland said the department is looking to hire one or two animal control officers for the county, and that he was reaching out to see if all of the towns and villages had animal control officers or just dog control officers. Schneider said the village has an animal control officer, though he mostly deals with dogs, and he is listed on the village website as a dog control officer.

“It would be very good to have a true animal control officer in a department in the county that took care of everything,” Schneider said. “It also would be helpful for the county that they would have an animal control officer team or person that they could send out to calls instead of sending a sheriff’s CX car that might be needed in other places for a human emergency.”

Schneider gave an example of having an injured beaver in Panama one night and that they had to wait for the sheriff’s department to come so they could take care of the issue. He said that if there was an animal control officer instead, especially as the sheriff’s cars are few these days and tied up in other places, especially at night, having a county animal control officer or team would be a good thing to have, and would help out the village’s own officer as well.