(Updated 1:30 a.m., Apr. 28)
City powerless to put down 'vicious' Rottweiler
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

Jean-Guy Prud'Homme is out to change how the system treats dog attacks and especially multiple offenders after his daughter Jesse Head was attacked by a Rottweiler earlier this month in Pineview. Fred Sherwin/Photo

City officials say they are powerless to apprehend and put down a Rottweiler in Pineview that is responsible for two vicious attacks in the past two years.

On April 11, 12-year-old Jesse Head was attacked by the dog in question as she and a friend were walking to her mother's house on Beaverpond Drive.

The dog, which had gotten loose from its chain, jumped on her as the two girls were walking along a path. The force of the animal knocked Jesse to the ground. At the same time she noticed she was bleeding, some people who had happened on the scene called the dog off her.

"At first I thought I my nose was bleeding. It wasn't until I got to my mother's house and started wiping off all the blood that I realized he had bit me," recalls Jesse. "My friend said I looked like a trauma patient."

Jesse was taken to the hospital by her father Jean-Guy Prud'Homme where she was treated for two puncture wounds under her chin.

The next day, Prud'Homme reported the incident to the city bylaw department expecting them to step in, take the dog away and fine the owner. When he was told the most they could do was to order the dog's owner to quarantine the animal for 10 days and keep it muzzled.

Unsatisfied with the City's response, Prud'Homme decided to do his own investigation and interviewed the dog owner's neighbours who told him that the dog had attacked another individual in May, 2003.

When Prud'Homme informed the City about what he had found out, they could not immediately confirm or deny the allegation. Frustrated, Prud'Homme contacted Innes Ward Coun. Rainer Bloess on April 15 to try and get to the bottom of things.

When Bloess had a hard time getting a straight answer from city staff, he went by the dog owner's home on Beaverpond Road to take a look around.

After knocking on the door and getting no response, Bloess went around to the back yard of the townhouse where he found the dog chained to a stake with no muzzle.

"He started lunging at the chain, but he couldn't get free. He's a big, strong dog for sure," says Bloess.

It wasn't until last week that the City's bylaw office, confirmed that the dog did indeed attack another person on May 3, 2004 although they would not release any details about the incident except that the dog was quarantined at the owner's home for 10 days and the owner was issued a $610 fine.

A quick check of the Orleans Online archives reveals that Erin McCallum of Navan was attacked by the dog in question while she was visiting the owner's house with the man's ex-girlfriend. When she went out to the back yard to see the dog which was chained to a stake, it jumped on her and bit her in the face.

Here's an excerpt of what McCallum told Orleans Online shortly after the incident...

“When I went into the back yard the dog was nice and calm. Then as I got close to him I just reached out my left hand so he could sniff it,” said McCallum, who as 27 at the time.

In the split second she reached out her hand, the dog jumped from a standing position and bit the right side of her face.

“It happened so fast. He just lunged at me and grabbed the right side of my face. I pulled away and my friend said, ‘What’s wrong?’, and I said, ‘I think he bit me.’ Then my hand started filling with blood and I thought, ‘Oh God. He bit me.’,” recalled McCallum.

According to an article published in yesterday's Ottawa Citizen, court documents indicate the dog's owner, Trevor Belgrave, was fined $610 and given a year to pay. When the deadline expired without any payment being made, Belgrave's driver's license was suspended.

In the last few days, Belgrave has been charged with allowing a dog to run at large and allowing a dog to bite, under the provincial Dog Owner's Liability Act. He has also been ordered to keep the dog muzzled at all times, although a bylaw officer noticed the dog outside without a muzzle on Tuesday, resulting in a third charge being laid for failing to comply with the original order.

If he's found guilty of all three charges, Belgrave could be fined a total of $1,000. What the city cannot do, according to the director of bylaw services Susan Jones, is step in and confiscate the dog and have it destroyed.

Not surprisingly that's not good enough for Prud'Homme, who is now on a mission to have the system changed. He wants Ottawa and other cities to create an incident data base that would keep track of dog attacks, listing both the animal and the owner. He also wants dog owners to pay an additional licensing fee that would act as an insurance premium. Should an individual suffer a dog attack, they would be eligible for compensation from the pool of money collected.

Failing that, he wants the province to pass legislation making it mandatory for dog owners to insure their animals in case they attack someone.

In the shorter term, Prud'Homme wants the dog in question to be destroyed to prevent the Rottweiler from attacking again and he wants Belgrave to be held accountable, first through a court order preventing him from owning a dog for a minimum of five years and secondly through litigation. Prud'homme says he plans to sue Belgrave for compensation.

"It comes down to three things: accountability, responsibility and liability, not just on the part of the dog owner, but on the part of our government and the politicians," says Prud'homme. "If you or I attacked someone we would have a policeman on our doorstep in no time at all and we'd be hauled off to jail. When a dog attacks someone, no one wants to do anything about it."

Bloess is so frustrated with the lack of information he's received from staff, he's taken the extraordinary step to file an Access to Information request.

"I understand Mr. Prud'Homme's frustration. I want to get to the bottom of this," says Bloess.

-- Click here to see May, 2003 story about first dog attack

(This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local business partners.)

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