Sarah Rawlings had a frightening encounter last summer with two pit bulls that snarled, snapped and tried to force their way into her yard while she pressed the fence gate closed with her full body and screamed for help. In the months that followed, she reached out to her Lafayette City Council representative with recommendations on what could be done to lessen the threat posed by dog attacks.
More than a year since her ordeal, Rawlings has grown frustrated by a lack of progress from city officials.
"I feel like I've just been shoved to the back burner," she said.
Rawlings, who now carries pepper spray whenever she works in her garden, suggested changes to the rules governing animal ownership in Lafayette.
"I think a lot of people just casually adopt animals who have the potential of becoming vicious," she said, "and they don't understand that those animals can turn vicious in a heartbeat."
So she put together a document with suggested changes to the city's animal ordinance.
Her goal is to force dog owners to understand how much responsibility they bear for their pets. Her method, she said, is "to hit them in their pocketbooks."
Her draft includes a steeper fine for anyone whose animal injures another animal or a person. It also stipulates that people who own a "potentially dangerous animal" be required to carry at least $100,000 worth of insurance to cover any injury, damage or loss inflicted by the animal.