Minnesota woman loses fight to keep dogs after City Council upholds new limits

A Meire Grove, Minn., woman working to keep her family's five dogs lost her struggle after the City Council voted 2-1 Thursday to uphold a new limit on pets.

The council voted last year to restrict to two the number of dogs that can belong to a single household. The limits are a problem for Ashley Theiler, who owns a five dogs, four of which are sled dogs and one of which is for medical reasons.

Now, keeping more than two dogs would constitute a misdemeanor in her central Minnesota town west of St. Cloud.

Theiler, 33, has created an online petition to gather support to have her dogs grandfathered in so three of them do not need to be separated from the rest of the pack.

The petition has gathered over 40,000 signatures, with about 1,300 signatures from Minnesotans. Very few were from Meire Grove, population 180.

That, Theiler wrote Friday on the petition site, prompted a comment from the mayor, who she said dismissed the petition as "nothing" because they didn't come from Meire Grove residents. Theiler could not be reached for comment.

"Pets are family," said Ellie Lauber, who signed the petition. "Imposing a dog limit would be like having a limit on how many children you have. As long as someone can take care of their pets they should have the right to have as many as they want."

Meire Grove is not the first city to install these sorts of rules. Edina does not allow pet owners to have more than three animals unless they have a special permit. The language for the Meire Grove law however, does not currently contain any mention of a permit.

More than two animals may only be kept for veterinary purposes in an agricultural part of Meire Grove. At the meeting, council members decided no language will be added to allow families with extra pets to be grandfathered in.

Jeanette Behr, research manager for the League of Minnesota Cities said it is fairly common to have laws limiting numbers of pets.

"The courts have said that cities do have the authority to limit the number of animals because of noise, odor and other concerns," she said.

A memo about animal control put out by the League states that courts have found animal-limitation laws to be reasonably linked to safety and public health.