At Isabel Vander Stoep / [email protected]
A 5-year-old border collie Australian shepherd mix called Sema had his day in court recently and was ruled “not dangerous” in a unanimous vote by the Lewis County Dangerous Animal Designation board.
The board is charged with discovering whether animals — however, they’ve just ever had hearings about dogs — are “dangerous” per the county code, which is specified as causing injury or death on an individual, domestic animal or animals without justification.
Sema the dog’s hearing was connected to an occurrence on June 22 at the Vader home of the dog’s owner, Christina Sanford.
If Sema was ruled “dangerous,” he’d either need to be euthanized or kept under a stringent set of guidelines, such as residing in a six-sided enclosure and being muzzled and under the care of an adult at all times when in public. Owners of “dangerous” dogs should likewise show that they have property insurance coverage and should publish indication. Violators might deal with criminal charges or have their dogs seized by Lewis County police officers.
On June 22, Sanford remembered to the board, she was taking care of her young infant who had a diaper blowout. After she put the dog outside in order to handle an already-chaotic scenario, she said, next-door neighbor Doug Missinne, who likewise lives part-time in Arizona, gone into Sanford’s lawn through a fence.
“I was changing a newborn baby (who was) screaming, blood-curdling screaming … and threw my dog outside because my dog was getting upset with the baby screaming,” Sanford said. “And then, all of this happened. I was outside dealing with this situation while my baby was laying on the bed. … That’s the only reason I can think why this would have happened. My dog has never been aggressive. My dog goes to dog parks, my dog goes camping.”
Missinne was a friend of Sanford’s grandpa, who owned your house formerly. Her grandpa passed away in September, and Missinne said he hadn’t gone to your house ever since.
When going to in June, Missinne had a pen and paper, meaning to request for Sanford’s sibling’s telephone number. When he formerly went to your house, Missinne said, there were dogs however no fence.
Sanford said in between her grandpa’s death and June, she’d invested $20,000 on the strong fence, particularly “to retain my dogs there, to keep my dogs in.”
Because she has a newborn, individuals don’t appear to her house unannounced, she included. Since the event in June, she said she keeps her fences locked.
When Missinne strolled in, Sema bit and acquired his arm. Missinne went to the Veterans Affairs center in Olympia, where he generally gets healthcare. Caregivers there encouraged him to go to Providence St. Peter Hospital rather, where he received stitches.
Sanford’s argument was that Sema had actually been provoked by a difficult and uncommon scenario, though she didn’t utilize that specific terms. She likewise said the dog was formerly trained to deactivate burglars with guns, which a complete stranger holding something might have set off Sema to attack.
The board ruled all that the dog was “not dangerous,” after a brief, personal consideration, however did not provide a particular factor behind the vote.
