In Janesville in the summer of 1854, a journalist protested that "when the lives of citizens come to be endangered, and everyone who walks the streets is exposed to the dreadful disease, hydrophobia, " then the government should take action.

So the City Council immediately passed an ordinance reading, "The owners of all dogs running at large after this date, not wearing muzzles, shall be killed. "

Their error was pointed out before any un-muzzled dog owners were actually killed. But in correcting the text, officials also tried to describe an exception and inadvertently created another absurdity:

"All dogs found running at large after this date, without wearing muzzles, shall be killed, except those in from the country on business. "

This seemed to give the farm dogs of Rock County more room for enterprise and initiative than other dogs. The law was finally amended to read, "Provided however that any dog or bitch belonging to any person living out of the city, and being in the city on business, shall not be liable to be killed in the day-time. "

Everyone had a good laugh at the writing foibles of elected officials. The dogs, however, reportedly were not amused.

The Janesville Gazette reported that the day after the law passed, two aldermen walking down the street "were fiercely beset by an incensed cur that had probably just read the ordinance, and they had to apply their official canes most vigorously in self-protection. "

-- Wisconsin Historical Society
www.wisconsinhistory.org

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