NEBRASKA -- Eryn Husband was 8 the day she reached into the new kennel behind her dad's girlfriend's place near Roca to pet the unfamiliar dog inside.
After a few seconds, Lakota, a wolf-hybrid, latched on to her arm.
"The skin was torn back and you could see the bone, and I was bleeding all over the place," said Eryn, who is 14 now.
Last week, the Western girl took the stand in a Lancaster County jury trial to determine who, if anyone, was to blame for what happened on Kristine Childers' property near Roca on May 6, 2006.
Her mother, Kelly Hummer, sued Childers and Timothy Jones, the Lincoln man who owned Lakota and another wolf-hybrid. Hummer had allowed him to move the dogs out to her property just two days earlier.
Childers, in turn, pointed the finger at her ex-boyfriend, Jon Husband, who was there with his daughter that day.
To award damages against Childers, the jury first must find, among other things, that the wolf-hybrid dogs created an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily injury to children likely to be on her land, that she failed to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger and that Eryn, because of her age, didn't realize the risk.
On Friday, at the end of a two-day trial, Hummer's attorney, Justin Kuntz, asked the jury to award Eryn $150,000 in damages.
Childers' attorney, Terry Wittler, suggested $15,000 instead, but argued his client had no reason to believe having the kennel in her backyard was a risk or that children would be out there alone.
At the time, Eryn Husband was with her father, who told her more than once not to go out to the kennel without him.
"What more could she have done to eliminate the risk?" Wittler asked.
If the jury were to find Childers negligent, he argued, Eryn Husband's own conduct was half to blame, and her father's conduct another 40 percent.
Jon Husband's attorney, Cameron Guenzel, saw it differently.
He argued Childers knew the animals, knew that Husband's children came out regularly on weekends, and failed to convey how dangerous the dog was.
Guenzel said Jon Husband did what any reasonable parent would: He told his daughter not to go to the kennel without him.
On the stand, Jones didn't dispute that he owned the wolf-hybrid, a cross between a German Shepard and another so-called wolf dog, that bit the girl.
He'd had him for 10 years and a female for eight. In all that time, he said, he never had problems.
"I owned 'em, but I built a safe kennel for 'em," he said.
The commercial kennel had 6-foot high steel panels, electric fencing at the top to make sure the animals didn't get out and a guard dog sign.
After the girl was bitten, Jones took both of the wolf-hybrids to the Humane Society in Lincoln to be put down.
The jury deliberated for about three hours Friday without reaching a verdict before being sent home to return Monday.
(Lincoln Journal Star - Jan 14, 2013)
