MASSACHUSETTS -- Selectmen voted unanimously Tuesday to order a 6-month-old pit bull weimaraner mix to be boarded and evaluated for seven days by an expert dog trainer, after he bit a 17-year-old boy in the crotch, requiring 30 stitches.
Regional Animal Control Officer Daniel Chauvin told selectmen that on June 7 the puppy, Tyson, was with his owner, Alex Melanson, and his friend as they were playing ball in Windle Field.
According to Mr. Chauvin, when Mr. Melanson’s friend squatted with the ball between his legs in a baseball-type stance, the dog leapt to get the ball with his teeth but missed and attacked the young man in the genitals.
Although it sounded like it was “a tragic accident,” Mr. Chauvin said, he had never before seen such an accidental bite require 30 stitches.
“If the dog is capable of inflicting this bad an injury by accident, what is it capable of inflicting should an incident really go south?” he asked.
“Playing or not, it wasn’t a nip. It was 30 stitches,” the victim’s mother told the board. She said her son was still receiving medical care for his injuries.
Mr. Chauvin said he had never had an incident with the dog before and wanted to take a preventive approach first, but he wanted to know what the owners would do to prevent a repeat.
Mr. Melanson told selectmen he had signed Tyson up for obedience classes at PetSmart and would never let him off-leash again. He would also be neutered.
Mr. Chauvin recommended that rather than taking the dog to standard obedience classes, he should be boarded and evaluated at the owner’s expense at Clark’s Dog Training and Boarding in Northbridge, the town’s contracted kennel. He said owner Robert Clark Sr. was the only person he would trust to determine whether the behavior was an accident or a personality trait.
Selectmen added the condition that beginning immediately, and continuing after the seven-day boarding period, the dog must be on a leash and muzzled at all times when out of the house.
Selectmen would revisit the order when Mr. Clark makes his recommendation at the public hearing’s continuation on July 14.
(Telegram & Gazette - June 23, 2015)
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