Some other dogs who've been killed for biting

The Chronicle Herald Archives have been good for finding articles about other dog owners who've had their dogs seized to be euthanized over the years - I didn't take all the articles I saw for dog owners who'd had their dogs seized, but I did take a couple of them.

From and article from December 2005 - talking about the HRM taking over the city's animal control contract, it very interestingly says - "In October, council's committee of the whole heard politicians bring forward 32 animal-control issues for staff to review and report to council. Allan Waye, the municipality's general manager of community projects, said Wednesday those issues include pet fees and fines, public education, waterfowl in lakes or parks and regulations on the care of rural animals. Mr. Waye said a consultant hired by the municipality estimated there
are 93,600 cats in metro and 67,390 dogs. He said that if a serious dog attack occurs, municipal staff will decide whether the animal must be destroyed.

In hindsight now, what does that sentence mean? Now that we've got A300 signed and sealed and we know that animal control officers are allowed to authorize an animal be destroyed - what does that line mean? Interesting.

The first article I put below is about a person who did seem to fight to save their dog - and then seeing that there seemed to be no way to win - gave up and let the city kill the dog - as well, while the dog was incarcerated - it bit a shelter worker, which seemed to further seal the fate of the dog.

I do really like the last sentence of the article where it says - Ms. Ponnanambalam said the lesson to be learned from the incident is that owners are responsible for the actions of their pets.

The last article is a real kicker - it's about 2 pit bulls from Cow Bay in 2007 - a lot of us will remember this story, and a few of us remember the dogs themselves. One person I know told me about the dogs - that one was a real macho kind of dog and the other one was a follower - a real sweet pittie, a lovely dog - and the dogs were always running at large in their community - the guy I knew quite often saw them running around when he was taking his dog for a run at Rainbow Haven. The amazing thing with this story is that these dogs killed like 40 chickens, were seized - the owner was fined - and then the dogs were returned to the owner!

Maybe A300 was written specifically for this dog owner - so punitively and horribly - just so they could kill any dog they saw fit who "might" reasonably have the propensity to possibly appear threatening - so they never saw a case like this one again. If that's the case - that is very wrong, and legislation should not be written to retroactively try and make things not happen again. That's stinkin' thinkin'

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Metro, Saturday, February 5, 2000, p. A3

Dog owner gives up fight to get back pet

A Bedford physician will abandon the fight to get her dog back from the SPCA after it attacked a cat.

Chris Ponnanambalam said Friday that Ravi, her family's Siberian husky, has been held for about three months by the SPCA in its animal shelter at Scarfe Court, Dartmouth.

"At this point, we believe it is in the best interests of the dog to allow the SPCA to proceed with their plans," she said. "This is not the same dog that was taken from us."

Ms. Ponnanambalam said the three-year-old male husky was ordered euthanized by the SPCA after at least one witness saw it attack a cat in November.

"We've since been fighting to get Ravi released to no avail," she said.

But Jackie Vanderheyden, animal control supervisor, said there were "no immediate plans to euthanize the dog.

"Since it is going to court we will not discuss the case further," Ms. Vanderheyden said.

The dog's owners are to appear in Bedford provincial court Friday on charges relating to the animal being at large and an attack on an SPCA staffer at the shelter.

Ms. Ponnanambalam said she understood the dog turned and bit an SPCA staffer's hand.

The SPCA will hold the animal until the matter is resolved in court, Ms. Vanderheyden said.

It's the dog's second stay at the shelter. Ravi was picked up two years ago, after killing a cat, and was later returned to the family.

Ms. Ponnanambalam said the lesson to be learned from the incident is that owners are responsible for the actions of their pets.

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Metro, Friday, April 2, 2004,
Biting dog ordered to be destroyed

Animal control officers have ordered a dog destroyed and charged its owner after a German shepherd bit four people in Halifax Wednesday. The owner has been charged under a municipal bylaw with having a dog that attacked people without provocation, Const. Mark Hobeck, acting
Halifax Regional Police spokesman, said.

If found guilty, the woman could face a $250 fine.

Animal control seized the dog and ordered it destroyed, the officer said.

The one-year-old dog escaped from his owner's car Wednesday morning in the parking lot of a medical building at the corner of Dunbrack Avenue and Lacewood Drive and bit four men.

Paramedics treated them. But two were taken to a Halifax hospital for further treatment.

The woman got the dog back into her car until animal control officers arrived and seized it from her.

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NovaScotia, Thursday, September 6, 2007,
Owner pleads for dog's life

TRURO - One day before a dog is to die for attacking a three-year-old girl in a park on Aug. 29, supporters hope to save it.

"We'll be at the (Colchester) County building for a demonstration at 10 a.m. in the hopes of having my dog returned to me," the dog's owner, Paula Cooper, said Wednesday.

Ms. Cooper said the nine-year-old dog is a family pet and she hopes to persuade county officials to let her pooch live. She calls what happened to the little girl an accident.

"It's not a violent or vicious dog and he's been around kids all his life," she said.

"It was an accident and the little girl is OK."

Mandy Patriquin, the girl's mother, said Wednesday that what happened was no accident.

Gracen Webb lost three teeth, her tongue was bitten through, her jaw was cracked, she took stitches inside and outside her mouth and she had a pile of bruising on her face, neck and chest after the dog mauled her.

"It certainly was beyond biting or snapping because he had her jaw in his mouth and he was chomping down," Ms. Patriquin said.

"It was a vicious attack."

It happened as Ms. Patriquin was about to leave Kiwanis Park. She had already put her children into her vehicle and as she was loading a bike into the back, she paused to talk with Ms. Cooper, who had the dog on a leash.

As the women spoke, Gracen got out of the vehicle unnoticed.

"The little girl came out of nowhere and tried to kiss him on the lips," Ms. Cooper said.

"It happened in three seconds. . . . He just nipped at her.

"The dog got startled and I just had enough time to say, 'No, don't . . .' and it happened."

Gracen was taken to Colchester Regional Hospital in Truro and later moved to the IWK Health Centre in Halifax where she was treated and released. She is to return to the IWK for a checkup on Friday.

The county's animal control officer investigated last week and determined that the dog is a danger to the public.

"It's all just so very sad," Ms. Cooper said.

"He's my family pet and he goes for rides in the car with us and he's never out of my sight . . . like one of my children."

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Metro, Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Woman walking dog attacked by pit bull

A woman walking her dog was bitten on the hand, and her dog was injured when a pit bull terrier attacked the dog Monday in north-end Dartmouth.

The attack happened near the intersection of Brule and Burke streets at about 2 p.m., Halifax Regional Police spokesman Sgt. Don Spicer said.

"It was a case of a woman walking her dog on the sidewalk on a leash, and a dog came running out from behind a house and attacked her dog.

She then tried to break it up," Sgt. Spicer said.

The pit bull's teeth pierced the skin on the back of the woman's hand while she was trying to separate the dogs, Sgt. Spicer said.

The woman went to a hospital for treatment, he said.

Paramedics were called to the scene but the call was cancelled before they arrived.

SPCA president Judith Gass said the pit bull's owner turned it over to animal control officers. It was later destroyed.

The woman's dog had to be taken to a veterinarian for treatment. Ms. Gass said she believed the woman's dog "got the worst of it," and needed plenty of stitches.

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NovaScotia, Friday, August 17, 2007
Rampaging dogs had killed before; Escapee pit bulls attacked man's pet rabbits

At least one of two now-dead pit bulls that escaped from their owner's property and slaught-ered 40 chickens at a hobby farm in Cow Bay on Tuesday also got loose in April and killed a neighbour's pet rabbits.

The owner pleaded guilty to several counts of allowing dogs to run at large and attacking without provocation. He was fined $300 and got the dogs back.

"I just couldn't believe it," said Ken Taylor, the rabbits' owner who lives on Dyke Road near the dogs' former home on Spruce Drive. "I'm very disappointed in how this has been handled."

He said an animal control staffer told him Wednesday that the dogs were returned to the owner, identified as Raymond Rolfe, because of a technicality that had something to do with proving they killed the rabbits. A woman who answered the door at Mr. Rolfe's home Wednesday
afternoon said they had no comment.

Mr. Taylor, describing himself as a vegetarian and animal lover, thinks the owner should not have been given the dogs back and that they should have been euthanized then.

He said April 12 was a sunny spring day so he put three of his rabbits - Chloe, Leo and Patches - in a backyard pen and went out to do errands.

He was horrified to hear vicious growling coming from his backyard when he returned home.

Two pit bulls had burrowed under the pen and were chasing a bloodied Patches, while the other two rabbits lay dead.

"I picked up a rock and I kept my distance from the dogs," Mr. Taylor said.

The dogs stopped and looked at him while he looked back, afraid to move any closer.

After about 20 seconds the dogs "ambled off through the hedge," he said.

Mr. Taylor raced to get Patches back inside the house. He said the rabbit is doing fine now.

One of the dogs was soon captured by the RCMP, who returned it to the owner. The other one was returned to the owner the next day. But the dogs got loose again on April 20 and when one came back home that day, police used a warrant to take it away.

The other dog remained loose for some time and worried neighbours started keeping their children and pets indoors.

Animal officers from Halifax Regional Municipality tried unsuccessfully to trap the dog, which was occasionally seen rooting through garbage bags for food.

Andrea MacDonald, manager of animal services for HRM, said she was unaware what happened to the dog, adding the owner had a second pit bull on his property later on.

It's believed the dog simply returned home.

Mr. Taylor said the loose dogs returned to his backyard on April 20, which he told animal control about. A neighbour warned him the dogs were free, so he kept his rabbits inside.

He was later dismayed to hear about the amount of the fine against the dogs' owner. Mr. Taylor didn't know the man got the dogs back until he heard of Tuesday's slaughter on Cow Bay Road, where 40 chickens died.

The RCMP and animal control responded and, at one point, a Mountie shot a charging pit bull. The one-year-old was hit in the hindquarters and was eventually captured and euthanized.

The other dog, a three-year-old, remained loose into the evening before returning home during the night. The owners contacted animal control, which had it put down too.

Halifax RCMP spokesman Cpl. Joe Taplin attributed the decision to euthanize the second dog to its behaviour Tuesday.

"The dog became very vicious."

He said the officer who shot the other dog had to do so because of the threat of serious bodily harm.

"It's a public safety issue."

Officers don't carry tranquillizer darts, he said.

Asked what will happen to the dogs' owner after the chicken slaughter, Cpl. Taplin said: "The investigation is continuing. We'll be working with HRM animal control to decide if any charges will be laid."

Confusion surrounding the identity of the dog that couldn't be captured after the rabbit attack appears to have tied the hands of animal control officials.

"We only know for certain that one of them was involved in the previous incident," Ms. MacDonald said.

"It's gone through the court system. The owner of the dog was charged regarding the rabbit incident and he did plead guilty."

Asked why the dogs were returned to the owner, she said: "There was no disposition decided on the dog that we had in custody so we were required to return the dog to the owner."

Tuesday's incident was the second time the Mounties had to shoot a pit bull in HRM since late July. That's when an officer killed a pit bull that charged him after getting loose and threatening a worker at a surfboard rental shop near Martinique Beach.

Cpl. Taplin said no charges were laid against the dog owner in that case.( )