SEATTLE, WASHINGTON -- A Seattle hearing examiner has freed a pit bull that had been exiled from the city, after it lunged at a stranger who tried to pet it during a walk in Magnolia.
The dog tore off part of the man's lip.
The dog tore off part of the man's lip.
The Jan. 1 attack prompted Seattle animal officials to declare the dog as "dangerous," a designation requiring death or banishment.
The dog's owner, Jason Jarrett, sent his dog, Bambu, to a shelter in rural Snohomish County that specializes in "troubled dogs".
The dog's owner, Jason Jarrett, sent his dog, Bambu, to a shelter in rural Snohomish County that specializes in "troubled dogs".
Then he challenged the city's order, which had required Bambu to spend the rest of its life in lockdown outside Seattle.
This is called NIMBY = "not in my back yard". It's when jurisdictions 'banish' vicious dogs to other cities and towns, essentially dumping their problems into your community.
This is called NIMBY = "not in my back yard". It's when jurisdictions 'banish' vicious dogs to other cities and towns, essentially dumping their problems into your community.
Last week, the hearing examiner reversed the order, saying the city could not prove the dog inflicted a "severe injury" under its narrowly written dangerous dog law at the time.
Before it was changed last month, the law defined a dangerous animal as one that inflicts a "severe injury." Such an injury included death, broken bones, or disfiguring lacerations requiring multiple sutures or cosmetic surgery.
Bambu's victim suffered a severed lower lip that couldn't be reattached, required several surgeries and left him disfigured. He had thought the dog looked friendly, but when he bent down to pet it, the dog jumped in the air, growled and bit the man's mouth.
Examiner Sue Tanner found that the wound - which was "deep and ragged" - was only a single laceration that did not qualify as a "severe injury." She applied the code that was in effect at the time of the attack.
The case, and a similar one involving another pit bull that bit three people, prompted the City Council to toughen the dangerous dog law last month. The council lowered the severity of injuries required to invoke enforcement.
A severe injury is now defined as nerve damage, a single broken one, or a single disfiguring wound requiring medical attention.
(Seattle PI - July 27, 2011)
