MINNESOTA -- Neighbors say that had the city done something sooner, the dog attack and subsequent shooting of the attacking dog by a Detroit Lakes police officer would never have happened.
But since it did happen, city officials are hoping the remaining dog, which wasn’t a part of the attack, will be quieter and less aggressive.
“It seems the city ordinances are arbitrary — good for some and not other,” Pam Van Dyke said. “If they’re not going to enforce them, don’t have them.”
Van Dyke’s mother, Karen Hanson, lives next door on Frazee Street to the Quinn Ni family, whose Tibetan mastiff-type dogs got out a week ago Tuesday and attacked Marsha Shannon’s dog as she walked it.
The police were called and had to shoot and kill the attacking dog. Van Dyke has been staying with her mother for several months and knows first-hand what the dogs have been like.
She said they have called the police numerous times because of the barking dogs, but the police have never ticketed Ni because many were deemed unfounded.
Police Chief Tim Eggebraaten explained that many times when police officers would drive up to the house to listen for barking, there weren’t even dogs outside. Van Dyke and Hanson said that is because the officers either took too long to get to the house or the owners would let the dogs in through the backdoor when the police arrived.
“We don’t call the police just for fun,” Van Dyke said.
Hanson said she tried talking to Ni about the dogs before she ever started calling the police. Since the barking continued, she started calling the police.
“The dogs have more rights than we do,” she said. “If they would have done what we asked last month (when attending a city council meeting), none of this would have happened.”
The night of the attack on Shannon’s dog, Hanson said she witnessed it when she heard Shannon yelling, “help me! Help me!” from the sidewalk.
Shannon said for the longest time she didn’t walk her dog past the Ni house because she feared their dogs, but she had gotten brave recently and thought she’d walk down Frazee Street.
The two Tibetan mastiff-type dogs happened to get out of the fenced in yard the night of Nov. 1 and one attacked her golden retriever.
“While my dog was being attacked, all I could think was ‘what if this was a child,’” she said at a public safety meeting Monday afternoon. But since her dog could protect itself somewhat, it lived.
“I will never walk past that corner again,” she added.
With that said, though, she said the second dog didn’t try to attack her at all and instead sat by and watched the black dog attack her dog. She said the brown one wasn’t aggressive, and she said she wonders if that dog will cause problems since the other one is now gone.
Hanson and Van Dyke said they think the brown dog will continue to cause problems, although they did admit there has been less barking in the last week, for whatever reason.
“The citizens of this town have a right to walk down the street,” Hanson said.
Besides the barking, she said her fence between her property and the Ni property is being ruined by the dogs. She worries the now-wobbly wooden fence will come down with one jump from the dog and it will possible attack her grandchildren.
“My grandchildren think there are monsters in my backyard,” she said.
Neighbor Carol Huakedahl said she can’t hear what Hanson does because there is a house between her and the dogs, but she does hear them somewhat, and she has a small dog she worries about as well.
“I am concerned about those dogs,” she said.
Hanson and Van Dyke asked what the city was going to do about the remaining dog and their damaged fence.
Eggebraaten said that since the brown dog hasn’t shown itself to be particularly aggressive, there’s nothing the police can do and hopefully it will be a moot point now that the black dog is dead.
“I don’t believe we have anything left,” he said.
City Attorney Karen Skoyles agreed that the city can’t target this dog since it’s not dangerous at this point. The barking can be monitored and the owners ticketed, if the barking is a problem.
Skoyles also said the only thing Hanson could do about the repairs to her fence is take Ni to reconciliation court — or small claims court — and have him pay for the fence repairs.
Eggebraaten said the Ni family is reasonable and would possibly pay for the damages, but that the police can’t go over and ask him to pay Hanson for the damages; that’s what the court system is for.
(Detroit Lakes - Nov 9, 2011)
