Their home in Alvaton hasn’t turned out to be as idyllic as Steven and Pam Barnett had hoped when they moved here from Ohio.

You could say their Cobblestone neighborhood has gone to the dogs. Now they’re trying to bite back.

The Barnetts were among several county residents who showed up for the Feb. 11 Warren Fiscal Court meeting to express concerns about unrestrained animals causing a nuisance in rural areas of the county that aren’t covered by any sort of leash law or other ordinance that requires dog owners to restrain their animals.

“There seems to be a plethora of pets not given proper care by their owners,” Steven Barnett said at the Feb. 11 meeting. “We found out that there are no leash laws in Warren County.

“There needs to be some teeth in animal control. It would help if we could have some measure that says the owner has to be responsible for pets.”

The city of Bowling Green has such an ordinance, which states: “Dogs allowed to roam our city’s streets are not only a nuisance and dangerous to the public, but are in constant danger from cars, people and even other animals. For these reasons, all dogs must be on a leash or confined on the owner’s premises at all times.”

That ordinance can be enforced with citations and fines that start at $100 and escalate for repeat offenders.

If you live outside the city limits, though, there is little recourse when unrestrained dogs roam onto your property or become aggressive, which the Barnetts say has happened in their neighborhood.

Traditionally rural and agricultural, unincorporated areas of the county may not have needed any sort of leash law in the past. But that is changing quickly in a county that has seen its population explode from 113,781 in 2010 to 134,554 in the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

“As the county has grown, there are so many more residential areas in the county,” said Lisa Henderson, animal control officer for the Warren County Sheriff’s Office. “Most of those people have pets, so that leads to these issues coming up.”

The issues are as varied as breeds of dogs.

Meredith Johnson, a longtime member of the Bowling Green League of Bicyclists, came to the Feb. 11 meeting to relate his experiences dealing with aggressive dogs while riding his bike.

It wasn’t news to Warren County Sheriff Brett Hightower.

“I get calls about this nearly weekly,” Hightower said. “We’ve had horses attacked, cars jumped on and bicyclists chased.”

Problem is, there’s little that Hightower or his animal control officers can do about such incidents.

“Right now, about the only thing we can do is talk to the owner,” Henderson said. “There are a few state laws that we can use if an aggressive animal hurts a person.

“There are laws addressing neglect and not taking care of an animal properly but nothing to address loose animals. That’s what the majority of our calls are about.”

Henderson said research has revealed that Kentucky counties similar in size to Warren, including Daviess and Hardin counties, already have ordinances in place that address keeping animals restrained.

Implementing such an ordinance in Warren County is complicated, Sixth District Magistrate Ron Cummings said.

“What’s applicable in a subdivision might not be applicable out in rural parts of the county,” he said.

Still, the magistrate whose district includes some of those rural areas believes the time has come to investigate implementing an ordinance addressing animal restraint.

“It (an animal control ordinance) needs to be taken up,” Cummings said. “We need a wide range of participants to help craft something that’s enforceable and has the proper teeth to make it effective.

“It’s time for us to do it.”

He won’t get any argument from Pam Barnett, who told the magistrates Feb. 11 that the Ohio community she moved from had an animal control ordinance with “heavy fines” that helped curb the nuisance animal problem.

Not having such an ordinance, she said, “puts everybody in danger.”

– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.