Felicia Harris sat in a holding cell at the Madison County Jail last February, anxiously waiting for her daughter to come bail her out. There were several other women in there, one of whom told her about robbing somebody. A woman one cell over was screaming.

Harris, a 46-year-old Huntsville mother who works as a special education classroom aide, said she was terrified.

"You kind of have to put on a brave front, because you never know what attitude somebody else may have," she said. "You can't let people know you're afraid to be there. I was petrified."

Harris had been booked in the jail on the charge of failure to license an animal, violating a city ordinance on pets that each year escalates to jail time for dozens in Huntsville.

Over the past five years, Huntsville Police have arrested people in 198 cases that began with charges including "failure to obtain license for animal," according to city records obtained by AL.com through a public records request.

"No person is arrested merely for the charge of failure to obtain an animal license," said Assistant City Attorney Edward Blair in a letter accompanying the city's records. "The resulting arrest would have been based on some other action or inaction on the part of the person cited."

AL.com found that for some people, the failure to get a pet license was their introduction into the city's court system and their only initial crime. But each failed to pay a fine, show up for court or attend a pet training course. In Harris' case, she didn't show up for a court date after her son received a citation for not licensing his dogs.

For many, the arrest means that an online search of their names brings up their information on sites like BustedNewspaper.com and DangerDating.com, which publish publicly-available mugshots and arrest information. Their photos appear in local mugshot newspapers.

"I have something on my record that's going to be there until the day I die," said Harris, "for not going to court because I did not license my animals.

"I don't think anybody should go to jail over a pet."

Breaking the rules

Karen Sheppard, director of Animal Services, said pulling a pet owner into court is a last resort for her department.

"We try to never write court summons," she said. "We try hard to do more education, encouragement, empowerment."

If an Animal Services officer encounters a pet - for example, if the officer picks up a dog running loose - and the pet isn't licensed, the owner is in violation of a City of Huntsville ordinance.

The ordinance says all dogs and cats over age 4 months have to be registered and licensed each year. Owners have to provide proof of current rabies vaccination and proof the pet has been spayed or neutered.

A one-year license is $10, and a lifetime license is $35. Fees can be waived or reduced based on income.

Sheppard says a pet owner who does not have a license is given two weeks to come to Animal Services and buy one.

After that, Animal Services may give the owner an extension if requested, she said. If the owner still doesn't get the license, Animal Services issues a citation and court summons.

Once in municipal court, Sheppard said, one often-used resolution to the issue is to require the pet owner get the license and take a Pet Awareness Welfare Seminar (PAWS) class for $35. It's held once a month on a Wednesday, from 1 p.m.-2:30 p.m. at the Animal Services center on Triana Boulevard.

"(The class) is what we like and that's what the judges like, too," said Sheppard. "Instead of punishing (the pet owner) financially, it takes some of their time and we try to make it a positive, encouraging and uplifting situation.

"The goal is to try to change and move their perception," she said, "and let them know we're trying to do good and we want them to join us in that."

If the pet owner doesn't show up to court or doesn't comply with a court requirement such as attending the PAWS class or paying a fine, a warrant is issued for the pet owner's arrest. AL.com spoke to another woman who had been booked in jail on the failure to license charge after she said she failed to show up for the PAWS class.

Arrests

What starts as a citation for a pet license needs just one more misstep to land a pet owner in jail.

In 2017, 31 people were arrested on 42 counts of failure to obtain license for an animal. Out of those, 14 were black, 14 were white and 3 were Hispanic.

Twenty of them were men, 11 were women. The youngest was 24 and the oldest was 80. At least 12 of them had "failure to license an animal" as their only charge when they were booked in jail.

Huntsville police aren't going to seek out a pet owner to serve a warrant on failure to license a pet, said Lt. Michael Johnson, public information officer with the Huntsville Police Department.

"Our officers don't go around typically issuing citations for not licensing your animal," said Johnson.

Instead, he said, if an officer happens to encounter the person in another situation - such as a traffic stop - and that person has an outstanding warrant of any kind, the officer will usually serve it.

"We are enforcing a division of our city's lawful right to make regulations," he said. "This is akin to not paying a parking ticket. If that person doesn't show up for their court date...or aren't paying their fines, it turns into an arrest at that point."

'Sitting there for a dog'

Harris found herself in jail in 2017 because the year before, her son's two dogs had escaped their leashes and a neighbor had called about the dogs running loose. Harris went to Animal Services to pick up the pets. She said she did not realize that by signing the papers to pick them up, she was held liable as their owner. They were not licensed.

After her son still didn't get the license, a court summons came to her in the mail. The court date wasn't for several weeks, she said, and she forgot about it.

Months later, she was taking care of some business at the courthouse and learned she had two outstanding warrants for failure to appear in court - the other was for another municipal citation - and she had nearly $900 in fines and court fees.

She turned herself in to police and was booked into the jail.

Harris said it was embarrassing that her colleagues could see her mugshot and arrest record in the local mugshot newspaper.

She worries what would have happened if she hadn't been able to pay the fines and had to remain in jail longer than a few hours. She has an adult daughter who is disabled, and Harris is her primary caregiver.

"If I'd had to serve those days in jail, my daughter could have been taken away," she said. "They don't realize how these laws affect other people in the family."

Sheppard said she is open to considering other ways to encourage people to get their pets vaccinated, spayed/neutered and licensed.

"What we're trying to do is just make Huntsville a safe place for pets and humans," she said. "We think about what we can do to be the most progressive animal services department in the United States."

Harris said she thinks jail should be an option for people who harm or neglect animals, but not for failure to license a pet.

"I was kept about in a holding cell with a whole lot of people in there for more serious crimes," she said, "and I'm sitting there for a dog."

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