SOAP LAKE - A pair of wolf-type dogs being kept in Soap Lake led the city to consider regulations that would bar exotic animals.

Soap Lake resident Eileen Beckwith told the Soap Lake City Council last week that she's seen the wolf-dogs roaming free on at least one occasion and commended the council for proactively addressing the issue.

"You guys and ladies have the power to help reduce the risk of something awful from happening, such as a kid getting disfigured by an attack of a high-risk animal," she said. "In consideration of public safety, I would respectfully urge you to adopt some kind of an ordinance that would include the prohibition of wolf-dog hybrids."

Soap Lake City Attorney Katherine Kenison began the discussion by giving council members a primer on the city's current animal ordinances and how they're affected by state regulations and past court decisions.

Local regulations of "dangerous dogs" are preempted by state law, which defines a dangerous dog as one that inflicts severe injury on a human being - such as disfigurement or broken bones - without provocation on public or private property.

The "dangerous" definition also applies to any dog that kills a domestic animal without provocation while off the owner's property or one that has previously been found to be a potentially dangerous dog because of an injury inflicted on a human.

While Soap Lake could adopt its own definition of "potentially dangerous dogs," Kenison said city code again uses the state definition, which is essentially any unprovoked dog that threatens or inflicts bites on a human or domestic animal on either public or private property.

The city code moves beyond the state statues with it's definition of a "vicious dog," which Kenison said was a failed attempt to accommodate more city input as to what constitutes a dangerous animal.

"In Moses Lake a 'hazardous dog' regulation was tried, but neither one of them worked particularly well because the courts have narrowed the field of discretion for the cities in regulating animals," she said.

This is partly due to pressure from national animal rights and dog breeding organizations who are resistant to breed-specific regulations, she added.

Court battles are continually changing the landscape of local dog regulations, Kenison said, explaining some have pushed to elevate the status of dogs from personal property to something deserving more personal protections, while others are asserting dog DNA, not visual identification, should be the only permissible way of determining a dog's breed.

She encouraged the council to consider the information when considering any ban on breeds.

"If you want to talk about breed specific legislation, recognize that you're inviting those issues into the mix," she said.

Kenison suggested the city organize a committee to examine what residents might want in regards to animal control and mull over what regulations they can use.

To deal with the immediate issue of wolf-dogs, she said the city might want to consider an "exotic animals" ordinance.

"There are lots of examples out there to look at regulating exotic animals and defining them," she said. "Right now a dog is a dog is a dog in your code, whether it's 95 percent wolf or a domestic dog. A wolf is not a dog, so you're not talking about breed specific legislation, you're talking more about species specific legislation."

Councilman John Glassco asked if a simpler option might be to hand the issue over to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

"It seems we could cut through a lot of this if we could engage the game department to make a ruling on this animal and determine if it's a dog or if it's a wolf," he said. "If it's 95 percent wolf a person couldn't own a wild animal."

But Kenison said state game officials might choose to steer clear of the issue.

"You're getting back to problems with visual identification," she said. "I would hazard a guess that the dog owner is going to say that it's a hybrid, that it's not 100 percent wild wolf, in which case the game department may not be willing to do that."

While nothing was decided on the broader animal control issue, Soap Lake Police Chief Jim Dorris said the immediate wolf-dog controversy might be resolved by this spring if the owners move the animals to an out-of-town kennel, as they recently informed him.