Kathy Butler found her Mojo about a year ago but recently had to give it up.
Mojo is the name the Tooele resident gave to the young border collie mix puppy she found injured, malnourished and dehydrated on the side of a city street last summer.
Butler nursed Mojo back to health, incurring veterinary bills along the way, she said. For the past year, Mojo had been part of Butler's three-dog family.
Unfortunately for Butler and her two children who made Mojo their pet, Tooele allows only two pets per household — two dogs, two cats or one of each.
Butler said an animal control officer informed her of the city ordinance in May and gave her until June 7 to find Mojo a new home, sign the dog over to the city's animal shelter or be ticketed.
"I took this puppy in because I didn't want to leave it on the side of the road," Butler said. "I gave it a good home, and now it's taken away."
Earlier this month, Butler turned Mojo over to Tooele Animal Outreach director Marci Wicks, who last week found a foster home for the 1-year-old dog. The animal rescue group still is looking for a permanent home for Mojo.
Butler said she wasn't able to keep the dog because she couldn't risk getting a citation, which carries a $75 fine for a first infraction and can get as high as $700 for multiple fines.
Animal activists say Mojo's being forced from Butler's home is a casualty of Tooele's recent public awareness campaign to inform residents about the city's animal control ordinances and enforce them.
"All this is going to do is mean a lot of good animals are going to be taken from homes," Wicks said. "I'm worried that some of these pets will end up being euthanized because of this."
The door-to-door campaign is being spearheaded by Debra Bush, who was hired about 10 months ago to oversee Tooele Animal Control and the city's animal shelter at 3312 N. 1200 West.
Bush calls the effort a "meet and greet," designed to cut down on the number of complaints animal control receives about dog bites, animals running at large and barking dogs.
"We feel if the community is informed, they will take steps to comply with city ordinances," Bush said.
Bush said Tooele's animal control ordinances have not been enforced very strongly in recent years, leading to what she says are "serious problems."
Cases of people being bitten by dogs in Tooele, for example, average about 10 per month, Bush said.
"We had at least 12 bites last month, and eight of those involved children," she said. "That gets my attention."
Holly Sizemore, executive director of No More Homeless Pets in Utah, said she believes the city is going about solving its problems the wrong way.
Sizemore said canvassing neighborhoods to enforce the two-pet limit unfairly punishes some responsible pet owners for problems created by irresponsible ones.
She suggests that the city target the real problem — reducing the number of stray dogs and cats.
"What we've found in our work is that a lot of nuisance issues can oftentimes be resolved through programs like low-cost spay and neuter programs and education," Sizemore said.
No More Homeless Pets, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending euthanasia of homeless dogs and cats in Utah, offers several such programs, she said.
Sizemore plans to attend a Tooele City Council meeting in July to encourage the city leaders to re-examine their pet-limit ordinance and replace it with one that better addresses concerns for the public's health and safety.
Tooele City Councilman John Hansen said he believes there's room for a compromise in the ordinance, suggesting that pet owners be allowed to pay a fee and get a permit for a third animal.
"This will be addressed by the council, and we will come to some kind of reasonable compromise," Hansen said.
E-mail: jpage@desnews.com