Blount County Animal Control Officer and Manager Lynn Burchfield said a county ordinance gives the center authority to classify the dogs owned by James Morris as vicious after several attacked a toddler the morning of Dec. 2 at Morris’ Cunningham Road West residence.
Morris, who was notified of the intent on Tuesday, has 10 days to appeal the decision to the Blount County Clerk’s Office. If deemed vicious, the animals would be required to remain chained or muzzled or in a secure location at all times, according to Section Five of the county resolution.
The Daily Times learned that the dogs were released from a 10-day quarantine in mid-December, but the details surrounding the possibility of the dogs being deemed as vicious were not fully known or clear.
Officer Burchfield said the center can’t be sure which dogs were involved in the attack, so all six of Morris’ dogs have been identified in the measure. The situation is also not one the center encounters on a regular basis, he said.
“The way (the ordinance) is reading, if you’ve got a dog and it bites somebody, I have to serve vicious dog papers on you,” Burchfield said.
Morris to appeal
Morris said he plans to appeal the decision. He’s looking for help from those who’ve met the dogs, he said, and those that could provide written statements and witness to support his assertion that the dogs are not vicious.
“The burden of proof is on myself,” Morris said. “And I know I have to get other people that’s been at the house and met the animals (to come forward).”
As far as he knows, Morris said, animal control is not trying to have the animals put down, but he’s afraid this could be the first step in that direction. He said he recently received a letter from a law firm reportedly representing the victim’s mother. That letter, he said, indicated the possibility of pending litigation in the Dec. 2 incident.
The Blount County Sheriff’s Office has not released the name of the 3-year-old victim or her family.
The girl’s mother reportedly told deputies that she left the girl outside with the dogs — two poodles and two pit-bull mixes — while she went inside to fix her daughter a glass of water. When she returned, she said, the dogs had the girl on the ground and were biting her.
The girl was listed in stable condition at the University of Tennessee Medical Center shortly after the attack. She is reportedly recovering from her injuries.
(Daily Times - Jan 4, 2012)
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