CANADA -- When Judith Leaper walks her terrier mix dog Toby, she now takes a cane, her phone programmed for 911 and something else she called “probably illegal.”
Last August while walking her dog, a pit bull ran from her neighbour’s front lawn and attacked her dog, leaving a serious gash in the dog’s neck. The incident has left both her and Toby with a serious case of high anxiety. “I don’t walk that route anymore,” said Leaper. “But just the same I’m not taking any chances.” The same pit bull has attacked at least one other dog, has a reputation amongst residents in the area and is apparently a pariah at the local dog walk park.
When the pit bull attacked Leaper’s dog, the dog’s owner came to the scene and tried to pry her dog off, while Leaper kicked at the dog to defend Toby. “When the dog ran out of the yard, she (the owner) yelled at me to run,” recalled Leaper. “Then when she separated the two dogs she told me to run again. My dog could barely get up. He was obviously injured. There was blood coming from his mouth.”
In the melee, the pit bull owner’s hand was bitten, an injury she is threatening to sue the Leaper family over. “They (the owners) paid the $306 veterinarian’s bill but in the same letter threatened to sue us saying that she had to change jobs because her hand was so seriously injured,” Leaper explained. A police report of the incident, however, indicates that the woman was likely bitten by her own dog.
Donald Cummings has also had an up close and personal experience with the same pit bull when in late October his son Greg was walking their Golden Retriever, Kayla, in the woods near their Pierrefonds home. Both dogs were off-leash when the pit bull made a beeline for Kayla, leaving a gaping six-inch-long wound in the dog’s side before Cumming’s son pried the pit bull off.
“The owner leashed his dog and told my son he would pay the vet’s bill,” said Cummings.
Cummings eventually rushed Kayla off to the emergency 24-hour vet in Lachine where they did some preliminary repairs. The next day the dog endured a four-hour operation with their regular veterinarian. When Cummings and his son went to the dog’s owner with the vet bill of $968, he was paid in cash and signed a receipt saying the matter was closed.
According to Cummings he knows of at least two other cases where the same pit bull attacked a dog and the owners were paid off in cash. “I found it a little strange that he paid me in cash,” said Cummings. “It’s as if he doesn’t want to leave any trace.” The Leapers, however, had their vet’s expenses paid for with a money order.
The Cummings and Leapers — who did not know each other until they learned they shared a dog attack in common — have mobilized in the community with a petition signed by 100 people, which they gave to Pierrefonds city council. “For two months we got nowhere with the city,” said Leaper.
“We made numerous phone calls, filled out police reports and let public security know. It wasn’t until we went and complained at the last two council meetings that we got some results.”
The Cummings and Leapers eventually this week got a call from their councillor, Christan Dubois, indicating that the pit bull owners would be fined $400 and that the city would be proceeding to have the pit bull removed and assessed.
“I find this process very difficult,” said Leaper, who puts the blame squarely in the hands of the dog’s owner. “There are no bad dogs, just bad owners. Imagine if there had been a child in the street when that dog ran out. I don’t want it to happen again.”
(The Suburban Newspaper - Nov 14, 2012)
