Hodder Avenue resident Sylvain Bernard told The Chronicle-Journal that his sister’s Yorkie, a five-month-old puppy named Roxy, was killed by a neighbour’s dog about 6 p.m. on Thursday.
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| Sylvain Bernard is left with only a photograph of Roxy, his sister’s Yorkie, that he says was killed by a neighbour’s dog. |
“My mother had just let out our dog, a Bichon Frisé, and the Yorkie puppy in the yard,” he said on Friday.
“It happened really quick. Our two dogs were caught up in their leashes and she leaned over to try and untangle them.
“She heard the little dog yelping and turned to see the Yorkie (which weighs about two pounds) in the husky’s mouth; and it was throwing it around like a rag doll.
“My sister ran out and saw this dog devouring her pet. She yelled at the dog and it dropped Roxy. She was holding her dog and telling the husky ‘to get out of here,’ but it kept circling her like a wolf.”
The neighbour eventually came and took the dog back home.
The little dog passed away on the bathroom counter about five minutes later, Bernard said. “My sister was covered in blood, crying and horribly shaken from this traumatic experience.”
He said it appears that the husky crawled under a board which was covering an opening in the fence.
“It was very vicious behavior” from this dog, he said, which normally would just run up and down along the chain-link fence separating the two yards.
Bernard said that nothing like this has happened in the 22 years the family has lived on Hodder Avenue.
City police were called and they contacted the city’s animal services department.
“We were advised by city police last night, and are awaiting the paperwork,” Ron Bourret, the city's bylaw and enforcement manager, confirmed Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the city is reminding people to keep their dogs on a leash when walking, and confined to their property otherwise, after two Thunder Bay dog owners were fined $4,000 for letting their dogs run-at-large in the Mountain Road area.
The fines were handed down in provincial offences court on Wednesday, and come due to the owners after one of their dogs, while running at large, attacked and injured a smaller dog.
The smaller dog owned by a neighbour survived, but vet bills have totalled more than $4,000 so far, Bourret said.
The city says that any instance of a dog running at large should be reported to animal services; if the dog is posing a threat to public safety, police should be called.
(Chronicle Journal - November 26, 2011)
