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The number of tickets issued under Saskatoon’s animal control bylaw is dropping, including just three citations last year for failing to clean up after dogs.

Over the past three years, the number of tickets issued has dropped each year from 1,394 in 2016 to 1,055 in 2017 and 1,047 last year, despite an increasing number of licensed pets.

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Coun. Randy Donauer has asked for information on the city’s ability to enforce the bylaw as part of a study on the feasibility of allowing dogs on leashes in Kiwanis Memorial Park downtown.

The combined citations for “failure to remove feces” and allowing feces to accumulate on private property dropped to three last year from five in 2017 and 12 in 2016.

“The failure to clean up is a growing problem and I have seen the ‘fruit’ of it with feces in the parks,” Donauer said in a text message. “It is frustrating for those of us who use the parks.”

Most of the citations over the last three years have been issued for animals being at large, which means pets are off the premises of their owner and not constrained by a leash of no more than two metres in length, as required by the city’s bylaw. This accounted for 1,768 tickets over the last three calendar years.