ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - A colorful mural at an Arlington dog park depicting cartoon puppies frolicking and chasing bones is the subject of a federal lawsuit.Arlington County has ordered Kim Houghton to cover up a 1,000-square foot mural painted on the side of Wag More Dogs, her doggie day care business in Shirlington.
The county said the mural's content - replete with puppies, bones and paw prints - makes it a commercial sign subject to county regulations, and those regulations don't allow signs larger than 60 square feet.
"Arlington County has said because her picture of dogs, bones and paw prints has a relationship with her business, it's an illegal sign," says attorney Robert Frommer with the Institute for Justice, who filed a free speech lawsuit on behalf of Houghton Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
Houghton's lawyers say the county law is unconstitutional because it requires bureaucrats to determine whether the mural's content makes it artwork or commercial advertising.
Houghton says the mural is not advertising, but artwork intended to brighten up the adjacent dog park. She acknowledges that some of the cartoon dogs in the mural bear a resemblance to the dogs in her company logo.
She says her primary purpose was to brighten up the dog park, and that she deliberately avoided including the name of her business or any text that would associate the mural with her business.
But the county says that under its code, a mural on the side of a dog business that depicts dogs is a sign, not art.
"Once we have decided it's a commercial sign, we have an obligation to make sure it complies with our ordinance," says county spokeswoman Mary Curtius. "We were surprised by the lawsuit. ... We have been working with this business owner for quite some time and trying to accommodate her." 
Frommer says the county can't be in the business of reviewing a mural's content and deciding for itself whether a mural is artwork or advertising. That's an unconstitutional infringement of free speech, he says.
Frommer says counties clearly have the right to regulate commercial signage. But the fact that Houghton's mural says nothing about her business places it outside the scope of any legitimate regulation.
"Whatever gray areas there might be (in distinguishing advertising from artwork), this mural is far from it," says Frommer, whose institute has filed numerous lawsuits challenging what it sees as overzealous regulation of small businesses.
The law leads to ridiculous interpretations, Frommer says. Houghton was told the mural could depict anything but dogs, even though it would be seen outside a dog park. At one point, Houghton planned to have the dogs repainted as flowers to comply with the regulations.
"The problem with Arlington sign code (is) whether a sign can go up or not or whether artwork can go up or not depends on the identity of who is speaking and what it is they're saying," Frommer says.
Curtius says the county offered, as a compromise, to allow the mural if Houghton painted "Welcome to the Shirlington Dog Park" or words to that effect to clarify that the mural promotes the dog park and not her business. 
Houghton says the proposed compromise wasn't that simple. The county was insisting on 8-foot high letters spelling out the exact phrase "Welcome to Shirlington Park's Community Canine Area," which wouldn't fit on the side of the building and would cost $7,000 in addition to the $4,000 she already spent on the mural.
After several months of discussions that Houghton says were ultimately not productive, she decided to sue.
"I wasn't going to just walk away and whitewash " the mural, Houghton said.
Houghton says she was told to paint over the mural or cover it with a tarp. She's had a tarp over it for months.
"My heart is wrapped up in that mural right now," she says.
And some people actually believe that more government is a good thing.
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