Repeat Offender -- but "Nobody Cares"

"It's an aggressive dog. I would find it very difficult to believe that it's just a coincidence that there are two aggressive dogs going (to the Experimental Farm) regularly with a female owner and attacking small dogs. It's very unlikely.
"She said, 'By the way, I just want to let you know, my dog is a big hunter, and he goes after small dogs.'
"Basically, what she was telling us was, 'Don't be here'. We didn't take her seriously. This is federal property, it's open to the public. Anybody can go there. Why should it be any more dangerous than any other park?"
"We didn't see it coming. It went after our dog. Everyone screamed at the dog. Finally, he let go, but he had already bitten our dog.
"He attacked more aggressively this time. Then he let go of her and went after my mother-in-law's dog. But they managed to stop him. It looked really, really bad."
Hoda Shawki, owner of miniature dachschund Clementine

Matthew Redding and his wife, Hoda Shawki, say her dachshund Clementine has been attacked twice by the German shepherd that attacked and injured another small dog last Friday at the Experimental Farm.  Photograph by: Bruno Schlumberger , Ottawa Citizen

The second time fifteen-pound Clementine was attacked by a ferociously aggressive German shepherd the veterinarian surgical bill came to $1,550. The emergency veterinarian bill to try to stitch little Bella, the Snorkie, attacked at the Experimental Farm last Friday, came to $4,000. The middle-aged woman whose dog the German shepherd is, simply made a hasty retreat. It seems it is a particular speciality of the woman.

There is some concern that despite three hours of surgery some of the skin on Bella’s 

back may not heal properly. Veterinarians left surgical drains in some of the wounds to 

prevent infection, a common practice for dog bites.  (Cole Burston, Ottawa Citizen)

It would appear from new news stories coming out of the original reported event, that the woman and her dog have been a problem to many other loving and extremely concerned dog owners and their pets. And it is obvious that the woman knows well in advance that any encounter between her large and conflict-prone dog and small dogs which her own appears to particularly loathe, will leave the smaller dog in perilous health requiring immediate surgical repair.

That would make the woman a sociopath at best, and perhaps even worse, a psychopath. Someone who has no empathy for the concerns and pain experienced by others. Someone who doesn't mind inflicting pain on others. By the simple expedient of removing herself and her dog from the public sphere she would be performing a civil duty. Alternately, she could use a muzzle restraint on her aggressive dog, keeping it leashed at all times and warn other pet owners to give it wide berth.

But the fact is this woman appears never to bother placing her dog on leash, permitting it free rein to run about wherever it will, and giving it the opportunity thereby to victimize any small dogs it happens to run across. Matthew Redding and his wife Hoda Shawki have had their several encounters with the woman whose description they recognized from yesterday's newspaper account. They were walking their little dog off leash at the Experimental Farm and twice on two separate occasions it was attacked by the German shepherd.

The National Capital Commission which is responsible for the Central Experimental Farm has signage posted warning people that they are responsible for keeping their pets on leash to ensure they are able to control them at all times. Aggressive dogs should never be taken off leash anywhere, so their owners can control their actions. Small dogs are best kept on leash to ensure that their human companions are able to react to protect them, if need be.

"She has this expectation that she should be able to take this dog there, no matter how dangerous he is. It's really ridiculous when you know that your dog could hurt other dogs, and you still let it happen", said Ms. Shawki. She knows that the woman and her dog appear at the Experimental Farm on a regular basis; two days after the attack on Bella, she said, her brother-in-law saw the woman again with her dog running loose there.

Even keeping a small dog on its leash is no guarantee that the vicious German shepherd won't successfully attack, however. A pensioner and Humane Society volunteer, Johanne Bertrand, walked her dog on a leash, a small Shih Tzu on Monday. Suddenly a German shepherd came running toward them, she said. She pulled her little dog toward her to pick it up but the dog got there before she could. She managed to pull the little Shih Tzu free, but one of its hind legs had been punctured.

"I'm told that this dog is known to everyone there and it often attacks", said Ms. Bertrand. The medical bill to close the wounds in her little dog's leg came to $500, a sum she and her husband will be hard put to manage because "We're pensioners", said her husband. "We don't have a lot of cash."

The startling thing about all of this is that a report had been filed previously with the City of Ottawa's bylaw enforcement department. "They said unless you can give us the name of the owner or an address or something, nobody can do anything. I told her this has happened to us before. It might be happening to other people. Can't anybody at least say something publicly?" said Ms. Shawki.

The bylaw official told her, she said in a newspaper interview, that dog-on-dog attacks happen all the time. "Nobody cares." On the evidence as reported in these several news stories it would appear abundantly clear that the bylaw officer is wrong, dead wrong. Let's hope it doesn't take a dead animal before something is done to arrest the situation.