Ted Davis writes:

Which can easily be dealt with by general health and safety regulations /
bylaws - no need at all to specifically limit the number of animals that can
be held.

All of which eventually translate into minimum area/volume per animal
or per unit weight of animal - it is a lot easier to make assumptions
about the average floor space per dwelling unit of each type and the
average size of cats and dogs than it is to define the underlying
factors in ways that make enforcement practical.

Oh, sure. It's *easier*, but it's also ridiculous. At our Delta Society
testing last weekend we tested a three(?) pound Chihuahua and a couple
dogs that were about 100 pounds. I haven't seen any dog-number-limit
laws which differentiate between a 600 square foot apartment and a 4000
square foot home.

So by making these assumptions you describe, we're talking orders of
magnitude of difference for living area/volume of X animals.

Numerical limits
make for more enforacble laws.

Sure, but they also have no use for identifying a problem. If you just
like having laws to harrass people, that's fine. It falls apart if we
pretend that they're something else.

In any case, the laws are passed in the first place not to
inconvenience responsible and caring dog owners and cat keepers, they
are passed to deal with the irresponsible and careless - there just
isn't any reasonable way to distinguish the two classes and numerical
limits help to limit the damage the bad ones can get away with.

Applying this logic to other parts of our lives could get very
interesting.

--kyler