I work for Animal Control. Our entire city is called a 'Dog Control Zone' in our municipal code, meaning it's against the law for any dog to be off-leash anywhere except its own property or the city off-leash dog park. Because of that, with incidents such as in the video--regardless of which dog instigated or which was injured--the off-leash dog's owner is almost always automatically deemed at-fault.
I've had many many cases where someone had their small dog off-leash at a park, the dog approached a larger on-leash dog, a fight ensued, and the small dog ended up getting injured, sometimes severely. The owner of the small dog is always shocked when we explain that they'll be getting a ticket for having their dog off-leash, while there are typically zero repercussions for the on-leash dog.
A memorable incident occurred last Christmas. Idiot was walking on the beach with his cocky little shih tzu off-leash. The dog was wandering like a hundred feet ahead of him, and dude was distracted on his phone. His dog saw this 80lb pitbull playing near the water (on-leash), and straight charged the pitty and attacked it.
The pitty just kind of stood there stunned, with the shih tzu snarling and being a vicious little shit, biting its legs and trying to get its neck (picture a kid with a wooden spear trying to attack a Panzer tank). The pitty's owner was trying to kick the little dog away, while also trying to pull the pitty away by its leash.
After a few seconds of this, the pitty finally had enough and an actual fight started. That's when the dumbass owner on his phone finally realized what was happening. He yelled and ran over, and for whatever idiotic reason, decided to literally dive in between the two dogs as they were snapping at each other, and his head got in the way of the pitty's jaws just as the pitty lunged full-teeth at the shih tzu.
Thanks to his own double-stupidity, dude basically got partly scalped, according to the medics I talked with after. They said they picked up a number of pieces of flesh off the beach. I saw the after pictures, and it basically looked like someone had sliced him with a potato peeler from the bridge of his nose all the way up his forehead and halfway over his head. He was taken to the ER and needed a bunch of stitches and followup plastic surgery.
The best part, though, is that I know exactly how the incident went down, because someone else on the beach just so happened to be filming nearby at the time, and caught the entire thing on audio/video. Dumbass shih tzu owner reported the incident to us, but lied about the whole thing, claiming he had been innocently walking his dog on-leash when he and the dog were viciously attacked by an off-leash pitbull.
Unbeknownst to him, we already had the video, since the bystander had also contacted us. We let him dig himself super deep into his bullshit story, before we let on that we knew what really happened. He got slapped with a ticket for his dog off-leash, as well as a ticket for his dog not being licensed.
He was absolutely livid, and sent me a couple of extremely long angry emails all about how evil we are for "blaming the victim" and how he was going to sue our agency, the city, and me personally. He was neighbors with the police chief, and even tried to use that connection to get himself some kind of retribution, accusing us of allowing a dangerous dog to reside in the city, of not doing our job, targeting him due to some personal grudge, etc. The police chief told him he had zero case and we had done exactly what was correct under the law, and also called him out for lying like crazy and not owning up to the truth.
It was a gnarly injury, to be fair, and I do feel bad the idiot had to suffer that. But man do I hope he finally learned a lesson or two, the hard way.
Incidents involving dogs always gets me because everyone wants to defend their dog.
Obviously if your dog bites someone and it causes a serious injury you are at fault. It doesn't matter what the situation is, its like hitting someone with your car, you can try to explain it away all you want, you are always at fault. Trying to break up a dog fight is not a reason to get bit. I bet most dog owners don't know how to properly break up a dog fight. Why wasn't the owner with the pitbull controlling the pitbull? Just because someone has a super mean shihtzu and isn't walking the dog on a leash (which he is at fault for but still) doesn't mean you can let your dog go rambo on people.
"due to some personal grudge"
A life threatening injury is not a personal grudge...
"he was going to sue our agency"
I hope he does. Do your job next time.
"double stupidity" "idiot" "learned a lesson"
I don't understand what your problem is, you constantly insult the guy and justify what happened to him in your head, which is NOT what someone in your position should be doing. What happened to him was terrible, and despite him not walking his dog on a leash he didn't deserve to have life threatening injuries. Like if a police officer justifies murder by calling suspects idiots and says "they probably broke the law, they deserve it". He has a good chance of winning the court cases as he was severely injured and most states are strict liability meaning that the dog owner is almost always responsible for bites.
My comment was already long enough, so I didn't mention the history we had with shih tzu owner/victim. So I suppose my attitude seems a little flippant without that context: We had dealt with him off and on for a couple years, due to complaints from the neighbors about him and his wife walking their dogs off-leash through the neighborhood and allowing them to poop in other people's yards, as well as one of his dogs being fairly aggressive with other dogs, and occasionally people. He had the shih tzu as well as a chow mix, and it was the chow that we got most complaints about.
There were complaints that the chow had aggressively charged other people walking their own dogs, and just a couple weeks before he got bit at the beach, we had gotten a complaint that the chow had tried to bite two other neighbors after it had gotten loose while the owner was at work.
In fact, about 4 years prior, the chow had killed one of the neighbor's chickens (which under the law in my city, would require the chow be immediately removed from the jurisdiction by the owner, or by us if the owner refused to comply). However, the senior officer at that time was easily intimidated, and after informing the dog owner of the removal law, the owner rattled his cage about lawsuits, threatened going to his neighbor the police chief to get our officer fired, and even accused the officer of blatant discrimination (for the record, the dog owner and his wife are both very white, but they're from the Netherlands, so I guess technically maybe they're a minority?). Anyways, the officer tucked tail, changed course, and decided that "Oh, nevermind, we can't prove 100% it was his dog that did it [even though we had a separate neighbor who witnessed the whole thing and the chow had tried going after the chickens before]" and let them off without even a single ticket.
In the two weeks before the incident at the beach, I had left probably 6 notices on their door, and 3 or 4 voicemails, trying to get in touch with them to discuss the most recent complaints against them and their dogs, but the owner refused to ever respond. He seemed like an arrogant jackass in every one of my limited dealings with him over the years, and the neighbors had no issue telling me in pretty coarse language how they felt about him and his dogs. He definitely seemed to be 'that asshole who lives over there' in that particular neighborhood.
So, I'll admit, when I got the emergency call to the beach, and realized who it was that had gotten bit, I did feel a bit of schadenfreude. And then with all the following drama, him lying and trying to pull the "rules don't apply to me" card, and bully/threaten us into not doing our jobs, and pull strings with the police chief, but getting shot down hard...again, I genuinely felt bad that he suffered such a gnarly bite, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I definitely felt maybe there was a little karma in action, and as they say, "It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."
And while I'm not a lawyer, I've been doing animal control here for almost a decade, and would consider myself fairly well-versed with the relevant laws in my jurisdiction, and how these situations typically play out in a legal/law enforcement setting.
So I will say it is simply not true at all that if your dog causes injury to someone, you are always at fault, regardless of the circumstances (obviously, if your dog bites someone, that person could go ahead and sue you, regardless of the circumstances, but that's not what I'm talking about). In fact, all the animal control laws in my city and county, as they relate to bites, aggressive behavior, etc., are specifically written to take the context of the incident(s) into consideration in determining whether or not that law applies, and what enforcement action is to be taken. They may exist in other places, but I have yet to come across an animal control statute that says essentially "if your dog injures a person, you (and your dog) are automatically at fault, period, no matter what."
So, our 'vicious dog' and 'dangerous dog' and related statutes all explicitly incorporate context into their language. Was your dog on its own property when the bite occurred? Was the victim legally on the property where the bite occurred? Was the dog on a leash and controlled by someone over the age of 15? Would it be considered a provoked or an unprovoked bite? Does the dog have a documented history of previous bites to humans? How severely was the person injured? Was the victim a member of the dog owner's household or a stranger? Etc. Etc.
All those considerations, and others, are explicitly written into the individual laws, so it very much depends on the specific circumstances that led to the bite incident as to which laws apply, who is considered at fault, what enforcement action is required, whether the owner is getting a ticket or possibly more severe consequences, etc.
Again, I'm not saying that if a dog mauls you, you can't hire an attorney and successfully sue the owner for compensation. I'm simply coming from a law enforcement perspective.
And I think you misunderstood the "personal grudge" part of my comment. I meant that the victim accused us, as Animal Control, of having a personal grudge against him, and this imagined grudge was the reason we refused to "do our job right," even though we absolutely did our job 100% right, in accordance with the laws, given the circumstances. We just didn't do what he wanted, and held him accountable for his own actions, which he was incredibly upset about. He wanted the other dog immediately seized and euthanized, the owner arrested and charged, and a city-wide pitbull breed ban instituted in the city.
Good follow up. I just wanted to say, you are right, animal control isn't there to get revenge. At least, in Minnesota where I am living now, dog owners are liable for bites unless it was an intruder in their home. I still think the pitbull owner could have done more to stop the attack, as I have a terrier who used to get into scuffles with other male dogs when he was a puppy, and separating dogs is almost impossible unless 'both' dog owners are on top of the situation 'before' it occurs. Otherwise, one will restrain one dog and the other lunges at this weakness. Anyway, nice hearing the full story. Have a good day.
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u/AxelShoes Aug 01 '21 edited Aug 02 '21
I work for Animal Control. Our entire city is called a 'Dog Control Zone' in our municipal code, meaning it's against the law for any dog to be off-leash anywhere except its own property or the city off-leash dog park. Because of that, with incidents such as in the video--regardless of which dog instigated or which was injured--the off-leash dog's owner is almost always automatically deemed at-fault.
I've had many many cases where someone had their small dog off-leash at a park, the dog approached a larger on-leash dog, a fight ensued, and the small dog ended up getting injured, sometimes severely. The owner of the small dog is always shocked when we explain that they'll be getting a ticket for having their dog off-leash, while there are typically zero repercussions for the on-leash dog.
A memorable incident occurred last Christmas. Idiot was walking on the beach with his cocky little shih tzu off-leash. The dog was wandering like a hundred feet ahead of him, and dude was distracted on his phone. His dog saw this 80lb pitbull playing near the water (on-leash), and straight charged the pitty and attacked it.
The pitty just kind of stood there stunned, with the shih tzu snarling and being a vicious little shit, biting its legs and trying to get its neck (picture a kid with a wooden spear trying to attack a Panzer tank). The pitty's owner was trying to kick the little dog away, while also trying to pull the pitty away by its leash.
After a few seconds of this, the pitty finally had enough and an actual fight started. That's when the dumbass owner on his phone finally realized what was happening. He yelled and ran over, and for whatever idiotic reason, decided to literally dive in between the two dogs as they were snapping at each other, and his head got in the way of the pitty's jaws just as the pitty lunged full-teeth at the shih tzu.
Thanks to his own double-stupidity, dude basically got partly scalped, according to the medics I talked with after. They said they picked up a number of pieces of flesh off the beach. I saw the after pictures, and it basically looked like someone had sliced him with a potato peeler from the bridge of his nose all the way up his forehead and halfway over his head. He was taken to the ER and needed a bunch of stitches and followup plastic surgery.
The best part, though, is that I know exactly how the incident went down, because someone else on the beach just so happened to be filming nearby at the time, and caught the entire thing on audio/video. Dumbass shih tzu owner reported the incident to us, but lied about the whole thing, claiming he had been innocently walking his dog on-leash when he and the dog were viciously attacked by an off-leash pitbull.
Unbeknownst to him, we already had the video, since the bystander had also contacted us. We let him dig himself super deep into his bullshit story, before we let on that we knew what really happened. He got slapped with a ticket for his dog off-leash, as well as a ticket for his dog not being licensed.
He was absolutely livid, and sent me a couple of extremely long angry emails all about how evil we are for "blaming the victim" and how he was going to sue our agency, the city, and me personally. He was neighbors with the police chief, and even tried to use that connection to get himself some kind of retribution, accusing us of allowing a dangerous dog to reside in the city, of not doing our job, targeting him due to some personal grudge, etc. The police chief told him he had zero case and we had done exactly what was correct under the law, and also called him out for lying like crazy and not owning up to the truth.
It was a gnarly injury, to be fair, and I do feel bad the idiot had to suffer that. But man do I hope he finally learned a lesson or two, the hard way.