Metro to Require Pet Emission Testing
Exhibit A: Jewel the bulldog
Beginning in January 2008, when dog and cat owners re-license their pets each year in Davidson County, there will be an extra step: emissions testing.
Metro Council passed the Pet Emissions Testing bill last week, and the county has hired Envirotest Systems Corporation of West Granby, Conn., the same company that operates emissions testing for vehicles, to handle the cat and dog emissions testing, County Clerk John Arriola says.
“We have long been focused on cleaning up the outdoor air, and our vehicle emissions testing has helped in that,” he says. “But this new initiative is aimed at cleaning indoor air.”
Proponents of pet emissions testing note that as the population of Davidson County has grown, the number of dogs and cats has increased proportionally so that there are more than 200,000 pets living in the county.
“The county already requires a rabies shot and license for these pets, so this new requirement shouldn’t be too difficult—in fact, people could have their pets tested at the same time they take their cars through for emissions testing,” says Ronnie Greer, a Metro Council member with a long-standing interest in pet emissions.
Sponsors of the measure say that pets who are found to have an unusually high level of emissions will not be penalized in any way, but their owners would be encouraged to seek a veterinarian’s advice about a possible change of diet.
“Nobody is looking to force anybody to get rid of a high-emissions pet,” Greer says. “We’d just like to see some changes made that could turn the dog or cat into a low-emissions pet.”
The idea came to him when he was visiting a friend with an elderly bulldog named Jewel.
“Man, she could clear a room,” Greer says. “And I thought, ‘There’s got to be something better than just going out on the porch for a while. We do it with cars, why not pets?’”
Comments (0)