anyone have experience with animal control?

help! Manu is in serious trouble. two days ago, i had some gardners
come do some work on my yard. when they left, they shut the gate, but
it was not completely latched. i checked it, and thought it was
latched, but apparently it was not latched completely.

My family came by, and i put Manu into the yard because my sister is
afraid of dogs. he decided to jump up at the gate (he's never done
this before - i guess he saw the gardners use it and realized it was a
door), and managed to open it. he took off before i could stop him.

he ran over to the local park, with me chasing, where there was a guy
with a small dog (off leash). i yelled to please pick up his dog,
which he did. Manu then jumped up and sniffed at the dog. he did not
bite. however, in my county, jumping on someone is considered an
aggressive act. the guy called 911, the police came and took his
statement. they will send a report to animal control. additional
factors were that there were children in the park and of course Manu's
breed (pit bull for anyone who doesn't know). after this incident, i
was terrified.

then it got worse. yesterday night, when i opened the door for a

Janet B...

I'm really sorry Kelly. You need to know your specific laws. When I
chaired the vicious dog board here, a dog didn't have to bite to be
deemed vicious (which meant death BTW). Breed was not a
consideration, just actions. The action of attacking the Golden COULD
be viewed with SOME leniance (did the Golden provoke with a body
posture, snarl, or anything nobody wasn't close enough to see?). That
COULD get you a reprieve, but I'd expect that there may be some hefty
restrictions.

culprit...

yeah, dogs don't have to bite here to be deemed vicious (they use the
term dangerous). they can call him "potentially dangerous", which will
give him one more chance, or be declared dangerous, which means either
muzzle or death. everything is up to the particular animal control
officer, though there is an option to appeal. apparently breed is a
*big* factor in deciding the fate of the dog (i didn't know this when i
moved here, or i would have reconsidered).

i didn't see the body posture of the Golden, and the woman who owned
the dog was so angry at me ("it could have been a child!!!"), that i
have no doubt she will lie, if she even knows anything about dogs and
posturing. though i will admit that it's quite possible that Manu took
some friendly sniffing as reason to attack. i've got him to the point
where he will sit and take sniffing or whatever from unknown dogs when
he's on leash, but when he's running free, all bets are off.

also, some of her friends walked by afterwards, and were witnesses to
my anger at the woman's treatment of me, so they also decided i'm an
eeevil owner of an eeevil dog and all gave statements to the police.
one of the cops even threatened to arrest me for talking back when i
told him dog aggression does not equal human aggression. the other cop
was nice, came over to pet Manu, and said he liked pits and would tell
animal control that Manu is not human aggressive (i hope this helps my
case).

living in a suburban neighborhood is NOT for me. i need to go back to
the woods.

delivery, he bolted the front door. he has not tried this in over a
year, has been excellent in his stay. i don't know what happened.

he immediately ran to the park, where an off-leash, intact male Golden
ran up to him to check him out. being a dog aggressive pit bull, he
took this as in invitation for a scrap. he threw the Golden down and
put his mouth on the dog's neck. i was again running that direction,
but the owner was already screaming and freaking out, which of course
freaked out her kids too. the Golden was fighting back hard, and Manu
did not injure him. I pulled Manu off, and the woman refused to pull
her dog back because she was afraid of being bit. i guess she was
right, because the Golden bit me trying to come back at Manu, which he
did three times before i kicked him off. Woman called 911, screaming
"what if it was a child!!!" cops came, said same thing. woman says
her children are traumatized. i have offered to pay for a vet check
and even counceling for her kids.

two strikes in two days, and my county takes breed into consideration.
there are a few things that can happen. he can be declared vicious and
required to be muzzled. i can be required to get him out of the county
in 48 hours. he can be put to sleep. i can go to jail.

i'm terrified. has anyone been in a similar experience? i'm putting
strong bolts on the gate, but i don't know what else to do. i'm
considering having a friend take him so he won't be confiscated and put
to sleep. i don't know if this will create more trouble though.

ceb...

Kelly, I'm so sorry to hear about this. I don't have any experience with
AC, but you really do have all my sympathy.

My guess is that you will be able to show that you are a responsible dog
owner and that you take these incidents seriously. You can take some
additional steps to make sure he doesn't escape again.

I also think that giving him to a friend will backfire on you -- wouldn't
they just think you were being uncooperative and order you to produce
him?

Although I myself would not be above moving in the dead of night... it's
drastic, but fail safe.

culprit...

the thought has crossed my mind. :-)

help?
-kelly

showdogbark...

"Being a dog aggressive pit bull"
Wow you sure have not trained your dog to actually have the nerve to
say that the dog is "DOG AGGRESSIVE"

culprit...

wow, who unlocked the doors to the loony bin this time?

sighthounds & siberians...

You've missed showdogbark and Crystal. Although maybe "missed" isn't
the right word.

Mustang Sally

Since you obviously have not trained him and a normal dog is not
aggressive unless mishandled, I had a Neapolitan mastiff that would

Rocky...

It's no wonder that your area led the way in Canadian breed ban
legislation.

make dogs run just from her stare if they even tried to take her on,
not once did she have body to body aggression, once when a dog went for
the jugular on my dog Ruby, my Mastiff came and with her but only threw
the dog off the neck of Ruby, and no aggression after that.
Your dog sounds dangerous as you have not trained him properly or you
would not make such a statement or else you are perpetuating breed
specific legislation by that statement and that is how your dog will
get killed with that attitude about pit bulls rotties and mastiffs.
You can not use a yard to have as your way of training your dog and
hope no one ever opens the fence. This is called magical thinking in
therapy. YOU NEED TO TRAIN YOUR DOG. Or else there will be consequences
since there are too many pit bull owners who leave their dog in the
yard and it escalates the problem.
And since he is "DOG AGGRESSIVE" what are you doing having him at large
and yelling at people to watch out for their dogs?
Poor dog, may get put down because of your neglect to train it.
Show Dog Bark

showdogbark...

Paula,
Candy rots teeth, so trying to get along with people who are handing
out poison and candy is just that, I think my loyalty will be to dogs
and dog lovers.

Paula...

Just caught this. Thank you for deciding to take Matt's side in the
fight over his right to run a daycare that was proven to be a good
place for dogs and the owners who love them. I apologize for saying
that you could not admit when you were wrong.

Show Dog Bark
P.S.
Would you like some cheese with all that WHINING about your friend. I
think any one who has a Pitt Bull can stand up for themselves. That is
if they are not cowering in fear of the consequences of not having
trained it.
It is called ENABLING in therapy to defend your friend over the
consequences of the garden gate, bet you a loony this is not the first
time either that this has happened.

Paula...

Don't even start throwing therapy terms at me, hon. All it shows is
that you don't understand what enabling is. Even if what you were
saying is true, which it is not, I would be condoning her behavior,
not enabling it. Notice I didn't tell you what to think of her. I
told you that her history is matter of record for you to read for
yourself and that if you did, it would be beneficial to you, not to
her. She doesn't need defending. But while we're talking about it,
this is a good place to bring up integrity again. Here is my
integrity talking for you. Although I know from kelly's prior posts
that her dog lives in her house and not in the yard, that she trains
her dog and that she cares very deeply about how the public sees the
pit bull breed, I will say right here that even if she were my best
friend in the world I would still believe that she needs to take
better care than to allow her dog to get loose and run to the park.
See? That's how you defend the things about someone you think are
defensible without making the mistake of then saying everything they
do is right just because you like them. You can divide up people's
behavior into different groups. Let's watch how that works again.
Training her dog and having him be an indoor dog: smart. Not being
more careful about the gate and the door charging: not so smart. I'll
even give you an example of how you can do this with Jerry. You could
say, for example, helping me tremendously with my dog: good. Lying
about people and causing them to be unable to help dogs in their
business: not good. See how easy that was?

Show Dog Bark