PAWTUCKET — For anybody else, it would have been a hard sell.

But Alicia A. Hoffman, who wants to adopt a miniature horse and keep it at her parents’ house on Wilcox Avenue, had done her homework, and that went over big with the City Council.

When Alicia, 14, said miniature horses are different from pigs, sheep and goats, and shouldn’t be lumped together with them in the ordinance that bars barnyard animals from the city, council members practically fell over themselves trying to hammer out a compromise that would make it possible for her to have one as a pet.

“They’re great animals. They’re really fun to be with, take care of,” Alicia explained after last night’s Animal Control Committee meeting.

“You can’t ride a miniature horse,” she said, but you can get one to pull a cart carrying up to 100 pounds.

Accompanied by her parents, Andy and Judy Hoffman, Alicia regaled members of the committee with the results of her research, describing the care and feeding of miniature horses, detailing the way they differ from other animals, even quoting a doctor of veterinary medicine at Tufts University about the impact an urban environment would have on the breed.

Her request for an amendment classifying miniature horses as pets drew the opposition of John Holmes, the city’s animal control officer.

“I got the opinion of Dr. [E.J.] Finocchio,” Holmes said, referring to the well-known Rhode Island veterinarian. “A miniature horse is a horse. No matter how you look at it, it’s a horse.”

Holmes cautioned that, if the council allowed Alicia to keep a miniature horse at her house, it would have to allow everyone in the city to do so. “And my concern is that these animals would fall into the wrong hands,” he said.

Donald R. Grebien, a member, and Paul J. Wildenhain, the chairman of the Animal Control Committee, clearly didn’t want that to happen. But it was also clear neither man wanted to tell Alicia no. Wildenhain even offered a comment that bolstered case.

“They don’t chase cats,” he said, when Alicia acknowledged that keeping a miniature horse was a bigger responsibility than keeping a dog.

Grebien proposed a compromise: How would Alicia feel, he asked, if, instead of keeping the miniature horse at her home in Oak Hill, she agreed to stable it at Daggett Farm, the petting zoo in Slater Memorial Park?

Wildenhain said there was a precedent. “We had a gentleman who was raising a goat,” he said. “He needed the milk for medicinal purposes.”

But goats, like pigs, sheep and horses, are banned within city limits. So the man found a farmer who agreed to keep the goat for him outside the city, Wildenhain said. “He didn’t lose his goat. He just had to move it into a farm area.”

No decision was reached. Wildenhain and Grebien agreed to ask the city solicitor whether a miniature horse could legally be kept at Daggett Farm.

But Alicia and her parents were pleased. “We really are amazed and appreciative at how much thoughtful consideration you’ve given,” Judy Hoffman told the Animal Control Committee as the meeting broke up.

jcastell@projo.com