MASSACHUSETTS -- Selectmen ordered at a June 23 hearing that a dog who bit a boy in the groin be evaluated at a kennel and kept muzzled and leashed until the hearing is continued later this month.
According to Animal Control Officer Dan Chauvin’s testimony, on the afternoon of June 7, Alex Melanson and his friend Brian Havalotti were playing ball with Melanson’s six month old pit bull puppy, Tyson. Chauvin called the play “enthusiastic” and said that when they stopped playing, Havalotti had crouched down like a baseball catcher and was holding the ball between his legs. The dog lunged for the ball, missed, and caught Havalotti in the groin instead.
What were the Melansons doing to keep this from happening again, Chauvin asked, and what did the Board want to do to keep it from happening again? He was suggesting that some sort of training be mandated so that this situation never repeated itself.
Chairman Fran King said that the first time something happened that he tried to be lenient, but that he came down hard on repeat offenders. He said that the main thing was to protect everyone involved. He did not want to see this come up again somewhere down the line.
Rusty Murray, the bite victim’s mom, called the incident a “horrific event,” though acknowledged that it had happened out of play. She added that people who owned a pit bull ought to have a background on how to raise one. She noted that the dog is only six months old and asked “what is going to happen when he grows up?”
Murray alleged that this is not the first bite by the dog, just the first reported one. She said that the dog has reportedly bitten five other people, but the Melansons said that was not true.
King asked if any of those bites were reported and was told they were not. He asked if the Havalotti incident had been reported to the police and was told it was not but then was told by Murray that the hospital reported it to the dog officer. She said that she did not have time to make a police report. King told Bob Spain that this should have been followed up and the town manager said he would look into it.
Murray said that her son had gone through a lot mentally and physically, that he missed some school and that he still uses a wheelchair at school because of reduced mobility. She added that the wound reopened and had to be restitched, reminding her listeners that this was not just “a little nip.”
She said her son was “petrified” and that if the bite had gone “a hair deeper, he wouldn’t be having any children.”
Selectman Bill Borowski asked Murray if she more or less agreed with Chauvin’s account of the incident and Murray said that she did not believe it was a malicious attack. Borowski asked her what she would like to see happen and she said that she wanted to see the dog sent out of town. Another option was to send the dog to some sort of “pit bull training place.” She thought that the Melansons needed to know more about raising a pit bull.
The dog’s owner said that he has already been preparing to take the dog to training classes up at PetSmart. He also has muzzled the dog and says he will never be off the leash again. King reminded him that he was under oath and asked him if there was truly only one incident. Melanson again stated that there was only one. He added that the dog was being neutered soon “and that will calm him down.”
Borowski said that large muscular dogs need more supervision and that the responsibility falls on the owner. He said that he was inclined to be lenient on a first offense but not a second. Melanson said there had been one accident and the dog would never be off the leash again. Borowski said that he thought that the Board should insist on very strict conditions.
Selectman Brian Ashmankas asked Chauvin his opinion of the PetSmart training program, but the animal control officer said he knew nothing about it but that he believed it was more of an obedience school type of training.
Chauvin said that he recommended that the Melansons take the dog to the kennel that the town uses—C lark’s Kennel in Northbridge—and having former owner Robert Clark, Sr. evaluate the dog.
He said that he trains military dogs, police dogs, and drug dogs. He said that Clark was someone in whom he had the utmost reliance and was the person he most wanted with him in a difficult animal control situation.
He suggested that the dog be boarded there for five to seven days and let Clark decide what should be done. He reminded his listeners that Clark would not train the dog—he would train the owner. He said that if he decided that there was hope for the dog, then he could arrange for training.
Borowski said that he didn’t want a vicious dog in Millbury, but Chauvin reminded him that once a dog bites someone he cannot be moved. It can either be restrained or if all else failed, put down. Or as Chauvin put it: “Kill him or deal with him.” He added that he was glad that it was like that, that a problem couldn’t “migrate several zip codes down the road.”
The Board decided to continue the public hearing until its meeting on July 14 and will hear from Chauvin regarding the dog’s evaluation. In the interim, Melanson is to keep the dog muzzled and on a leash when he is outside.
(Millbury Sutton - July 2, 2015)
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