Dog’s death ‘really wrong, really unfair’
Fred Edzerza and his family learned the hard way last week that once a dog becomes the city’s property, it may be gone for good.
Photo submitted
DOG’S DEMISE DISPUTED – The owners of Cheona (above) and some of their relatives and friends are upset by the city’s decision to put the dog down.
Fred Edzerza and his family learned the hard way last week that once a dog becomes the city’s property, it may be gone for good.
Cheona, Edzerza’s big husky-cross, was an outdoor dog and a vocal one. So much so that Edzerza’s neighbours called the bylaw department repeatedly to complain about the noise of Cheona’s barking and howling.
In 2003, a ticket was issued and Cheona’s owners were fined $150 for failing to keep the dog quiet.
More noise complaints landed the Edzerzas in court again this year, resulting in a $300 fine and a court order to keep the dog inside during the night.
But Edzerza said that wasn’t possible. With two elders and a baby living in the house, it just wasn’t feasible to have the 120-pound dog inside. So the dog stayed out, and the neighbours kept complaining.
Finally, bylaw officials had enough. The Edzerzas weren’t obeying the court order and the dog was still howling.
So, two weeks ago, two officers went to speak to Fred’s wife, Loretta, the person named on the dog’s registration papers, and told her she either had to obey the order or sign the dog over to the city.
“She didn’t know what she was doing,” Fred told the Star this week. “They came to her work and she was all upset and they were telling her she had to sign it, so she did. She didn’t know it would mean Cheona was going to be taken away.”
According to John Taylor, the city’s manager of bylaw services, Loretta refused to bring the dog inside because she felt it would be unsafe to do so.
The bylaw officers told her they could either go back to court and get an order handing the dog over to the city, or she could simply sign him away, Taylor said.
When Fred found out the bylaw officers were on their way to seize his pet, he headed toward home, but not before stopping to get Cheona’s favourite snack.
“This dog is our baby,” Fred said. “I mean, I feed him beef jerky every day. So when I heard what was happening, I stopped at the Super A to get him a couple of packs of beef jerky so he could have a treat before he had to go. My boy was so happy to see me, and I couldn’t believe they were going to take him.”
But they did, and they informed Fred that the dog would likely be put down.
“The owner of the dog advised us that the dog was starting to act aggressive in certain situations,” senior bylaw officer Dave Pruden said, adding this was the reason Loretta said she didn’t want the dog in the house.
“The owner had signed the dog over to us, and at that point, we can do as we fit with the animal.”
He maintains the decision to put the dog down was based largely on information from the Edzerzas.
“We had very little interaction with this dog; it had mainly to do with these people saying he was becoming aggressive,” Pruden said, adding, “... When I went by the house, it seemed aggressive.”
As soon as Cheona and the officers were gone, Fred started looking for someone who could take the dog.
Over the next couple of days, he found two friends, one with an acreage on the Takhini Hot Springs Road and another living in Carcross.
But when he called the bylaw office to say he had found a new home for Cheona, he was told the dog was already dead.
Hoping to at least get the dog’s carcass back, Fred got in touch with the veterinary clinic where animals are euthanized. There, he learned the dog was still alive, so he called Taylor and told him a new home had been found.
Taylor informed Fred that Cheona’s fate was sealed. The city was not willing to give away a potentially dangerous dog.
“He said, ‘You should have dealt with it when you had the opportunity. You signed the release; he’s our dog now, we can do whatever we want with him,’” Fred said of his conversation with Taylor.
A call to deputy Mayor Dave Stockdale was similarly fruitless, with Stockdale saying it was a bylaw matter and not something he could influence.
“The thing is, they had followed their procedures,” Stockdale said in an interview. “... They hadn’t just come and taken the dog; they had a court order .... We don’t get involved in those day-to-day details.”
“When we become the owner of the dog, we become liable for the dog,” Taylor told the Star this week.
“So if we move the dog out of town and there’s a problem with it, we’re responsible.”
He also said Fred had basically ignored the problem by failing to come to court or respond to calls from bylaw before they came to deal with the issue in person.
Fred maintains Cheona was not dangerous, as do several friends and family members who have contacted the Star since the animal’s death.
“Cheona was an amazing creature, with the absolute most human-type characteristics you could find in an animal. For me, I felt lucky to know such a beautiful creature,” Fred’s nephew, Reg McGinty, said in an e-mail to the Star.
“... There had to have been a better solution to dealing with my uncle’s dog howling .... The ends did not justify the means in this situation at all.”
Fred compared Cheona’s treatment to that of another dog seized by the city pound earlier this year: Trevor.
“You hear stories about that dog Trevor who bit somebody and hasn’t been put down yet. Then you look at my dog, who they put down because he was howling .... It’s really, really wrong, and it’s really, really unfair that they’ve done this.”
Last week, Fred took Cheona’s ashes to his friend’s home on the Hot Springs Road, where the dog would have gone to live had he not been put down.
Thomas Brewer
Dec 11, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Let this be a lesson to owners that let your dogs bark incessantly. Your neighbours will only tolerate it for so long then you start getting the tickets.
If they refused to take the dog inside because of safety concerns for the old and young… time to put it down.
Thanks for doing the right thing this time Bylaw.