Owner of killer American Bulldogs: "As they say, s--t happens and I feel horrible.”

CANADA — A Cambridge couple had to put down their 11-year-old Bouvier after a vicious attack by two dogs left it clinging to life with severe injuries.

 Helen Kitchen said she had just set out for her regular walk with her dog Oscar shortly before 6:30 p.m. last Wednesday when her “neighbour’s pit bulls” got loose.

 “They were growling and just flew, grabbed him and dragged him,” she said, recalling the jolting experience. “One clamped on the back of his neck and the other was biting his legs and wouldn’t let go. I was hitting them with the leash and screaming for help.”      

 A passerby stopped to assist and told her to stand back. She ran next door to notify her husband Grant, who ended up beating the attackers off Oscar with a piece of ironwood. But by that time it was too late.

 The Kitchens rushed Oscar to a local animal hospital, then to the University of Guelph where a veterinarian gave him morphine and laid several options on the table.

 “They put a drain in his neck, but he was all swollen down the side of his face and soaked in blood,” Helen explained.

“They didn’t know if his ear canal was involved and said he had an irregular heartbeat. They thought there was maybe nerve damage, and he was 11. He had arthritis and cataracts and they couldn’t tell me how he would recover.”

 Like most owners of a domesticated pet, the Kitchens remember Oscar as a friendly dog that used to cuddle and play with children in their Elmwood Avenue neighbourhood.

The attackers’ owner, who asked not to be named, described her pets much the same, and said they play with her kids and “all the kids who come over” to their home on a regular basis.

The dogs got loose because a visitor left the backyard gate open. The owner has been fined for allowing them to run at large and the Humane Society has deemed them dangerous. The owner was also ordered to build them an enclosed pen and must have them spayed and neutered.

 According to Bonnie Deekon, executive director of the Cambridge and District Humane Society, the most recent incident could have been avoided if the victim’s owner filed a complaint when her guide dog was attacked previously.

 Helen, who suffers from visual impairment, said that one of the “pit bulls” had attacked her six-year-old black lab once before, but she didn’t report it because the injuries he sustained were very minor.
Her husband claims that the dogs next door previously killed other animals, including their owner’s cat.

 Usually dogs that attack other pets are not good house pets, Deekon deduced.

 “In this case, the owner has to become more responsible, but if a first report had been made, we wouldn’t likely be in the same position we are now,” she stated. “If people have concerns or are involved in an altercation, they need to report them.”

The attackers’ owner expressed remorse for her neighbours’ loss and paid $1,500 for their vet bills. She also said she plans to get rid of her dogs, but won’t see them destroyed.

 The Kitchens, on the other hand, believe that her dogs pose a potential danger to other animals, as well as humans, and want to see them pay the ultimate price. But their only option is to go through the courts and charge the owner under the Dog Owners Liability Act, an option they currently can’t afford.

 “We don’t have the authority to put dogs down,” said Deekon, “but if the dogs were deemed dangerous before, our recourse would have been much more severe and we’d encourage the owner to have them euthanized.”

Deekon said there is a third dog living in the  home, also an “American bulldog”, that the Humane Society can’t do much about. They’re not pit bulls, the owner contends.

“They’re American Bull Crosses.”

 According to her mother-in-law, the dogs were nice as pie when police showed up on Wednesday evening.

Police did not press charges against the owners, but did confirm that they arrested a 34-year-old male last August at the same address and charged him with production and possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.

 The current occupant and dog owner was visibly upset, saying that all the money she’d saved to give her children a nice Christmas has been spent on compensating the victims of the attack.

 “As they say, s--t happens and I feel horrible.”

(Cambridge Times - Nov 23, 2011)

Earlier:

• Woman's dog fatally attacked by American Bulldogs

Canada: Woman's dog attacked and mauled to death by American Bulldogs

CAMBRIDGE, ONTARIO, CANADA — Helen Kitchen wonders why her neighbors’ dogs aren’t being put down after they fatally attacked her Bouvier des Flandres last week.

Kitchen, who’s visually impaired, had to put down her 11-year-old dog, Oscar, Thursday night after deciding his injuries from Wednesday’s attack were too severe. She also has a guide dog, a black lab named Palmer.

“The thing I’m concerned about is that the dogs aren’t going to be put down … and that’s the thing we really wanted,” said Kitchen.

But the killer dogs' owners say that’s far from necessary.

OWNERS REFUSE TO EUTHANIZE THEIR KILLER DOGS

“I would be the first person to insist those dogs would go if they were posing a threat to our grandchildren,” said Suzanne Taylor, whose son, daughter-in-law and a grandson live in the same Elmwood Avenue home. “We just don’t believe in killing animals for no reason.”

Kitchen, who has some sight, was taking Oscar for a walk alone on Elmwood Avenue last Wednesday evening when she said two of her neighbors’ three American Bulldogs “came flying out of the backyard.”

One dog grabbed Oscar by the neck and the other bit at his legs.

She screamed for help and a man driving by stopped to help break up the fight. He couldn’t, so Kitchen directed him into her house to fetch her husband, Grant.

Oscar was moaning the entire time.

When her husband arrived, Kitchen said he broke up the fight with a stick.

The Cambridge and District Humane Society verified Kitchen’s version of events.

Executive director Bonnie Deekon said the neighbors’ dogs won’t be euthanized, but they have been declared “dangerous dogs” under a Cambridge bylaw.

That allows the humane society to track the dogs through microchips, requires that they be kept in enclosures with extra security such as a concrete bottom and mandates they wear muzzles and leashes no longer than a meter when outside of the owners’ property.

The dog owners have been fined $125 for each of the two dogs for allowing them to run free. They also paid $1,500 in veterinary bills.

“The owner is at fault for letting the dogs out, but who knows what happened, why they were running loose,” said Deekon. “Is there anything the law (outside of civil litigation) can do about this? No, absolutely not. It needs to be the dog owners’ responsibility.”

Taylor said the dogs have never gotten loose from the backyard before, and it was an unfortunate accident. A family friend had visited and when he left through the gate, he didn’t check the latch, she said.

“He didn’t mean for that to happen. We didn’t mean for that to happen,” Taylor said. “We’re all upset about the loss.”

Oh really? You have your two killer dogs at home. Her dog is dead.

Kitchen said she always believed the neighbors’ dogs were all pit bulls, but when the Cambridge and District Humane Society investigated the incident, they determined the dogs were American Bulldogs.

“We have papers to that effect. These are not illegal dogs,” Suzanne Taylor said.

This is the mentality of Suzanne Taylor

(The Record - Nov 21, 2011)