With the RCMP in attendance mid-day Friday, the Campbell River SPCA and a city bylaw enforcement officer seized the pit bull just hours after the Mirror published a front page story describing the dog’s vicious Sept. 26 attack that left a dachshund dead and its family traumatized.
By 3 p.m. Friday the city’s manager of bylaw enforcement, Peter Wipper, was able to report that the owner had agreed to have the animal “put down” rather than go to court.
After the seizure of the pit bull SPCA Manager Kathleen Embree said the Mirror story “almost wrecked it for us because it came out on the front page of the newspaper so we had to act very expediently because it was going to be an issue.”
In fact, a provincial court judge had issued a warrant to seize the dog Tuesday, Oct. 16, one day before Embree first told the Mirror there had been an attack.
Wipper said the three day delay in exercising the warrant was due to scheduling difficulties getting the RCMP, the SPCA and the bylaw officer “co-ordinated.” He added that he wants the public to be reassured that the city “was taking this file very seriously” and “a lot was happening behind the scenes to make this happen.”
The pure bred three-year-old dachshund, Oscar, was being walked by John Miller, the 65-year-old father of the dog’s owner Sheryl Miller. Her two children, Kacee, 6 and Nevaeh, 3, were also walking with their grandfather when the pit bull leapt over its owner’s fence at the corner of Westgate and Arnason roads. John Miller, covered in blood after protecting his grandchildren, went into shock and spent two days in hospital.
None of the authorities involved have identified the pit bull owner. A second pit bull that played a lesser role in the attack was not seized.
(Campbell River Mirror - October 19, 2012)
Earlier:
