Bolding mine.
Metacom you missed this part.
She’s a tenant on a property that’s shared with her landlord, so while it was “her” porch, it was also “his.” At least, that’s how I understood the situation. I think that changes things.
Yes, and there are a great many messages in this thread discussing that very issue. See my exchange with bodypoet, which occured very shortly before you posted.
Shodan Heck yeah, I’d expect the landlord to keep his damned dog inside if I’d had to put it there. For all he knew the dogpound was out prowling around and I was doing him a favor. It’s a logical thing (yeah he was probably drink addled, humans make mistakes, that doesn’t mean the blame is on the OP though) to think “Oh, someone’s put my dog inside, there must be a good reason, so I’ll let her stay in for now.” Did you also miss the part where the dog trespassed onto her doorstep to fatally wound her cat?
Metacom Let go your pride. You were insensitive. Accept cupability, apologize, and move on endeavoring not to do it again. You didn’t have all the facts, and you posted something upsetting. Now you are puffed up and proudly defending that, which is a fruitless effort. Be graceful, and apply some tact. If you are too proud and hard headed to apologize, leave the thread. I’m saying this with a sincere desire to attempt to help you. Just as you sincerely desire to condescend to help others, but with less patronizing on my part. I do wish you well. Leave the poor lady be though!
FTR, she paid the rent, it’s her property. Each apartment? unit? had it’s own “yard” area, and certainly the doorstep/porch is considered the renter’s turf legally, because restraining orders are upheld by things like that. When I got mine, and called to complain the person was breaking it, the officer measured the distance from the area in front of my apartment door to where he was, and found him in violation. Therefore, that dog was tresspassing on HER property. I’m pretty certain that such things don’t really vary too widely on a state by state basis.
Zabali, spare me the “you’re insensitive, apologize, be graceful” bit. I expressed, and as a pet owner truly feel, sympathy. I’ve gone out of my way to make that clear several times. I’ve also said that she deserves some, but by no means all, of the culpability for this. She inadvertently let her cat out, when she’d been warned not to let that happen (by the person who owns the property and can legally dictate such things). Please note that I’m NOT saying this excuses the landlord. If her story is accurate, he should loose his dog. I also don’t buy without question her criticism of the animal control officer–ostensibly, this thread is about the “bitch” of a dog control officer, not the original incident.
There’s nothing wrong with expressing a politely disagreeing opinion in a pit thread. I’m not going to apologize for that. I did get snarky on a few posts after the knee-jerk attacks started, and I do apologize for that.
Her story did seem to change though–perhaps that confused me. In her OP, she says that she realized her cat had gotten out, so she put the dog in his house, then the dog got out again, and then it attacked her cat, then she went to the other side of the “house” (she doesn’t say which ), where the attack was occuring:
Later on, this all comes down to “in front of my door.” She didn’t even see the attack start–for all she knew, the cat ran to the safety of the house from somewhere completely different.
I guess her door is on the side of her house.
I would think that when she heard her beloved pet’s screams would be when the dog was first mauling it. You yourself have said that dogs don’t want to move from the spot if they have “prey”. She heard the screams, and immeadiately ran towards them, seconds later she finds the dog on her doorstep mauling her cat. It follows then, that the loose dog pursued her cat onto the OP’s property, and attacked it, fatally wounding it. The cat, admittedly was loose, it obviously was running for safety, and had the dog been penned or chained would have succeeded. Therefore, the dog owner bears the main burden of wrongdoing in this, in that his dog was loose and able to do such a thing. Indeed, he let the dog loose after it had been contained in his house. She was attempting to locate and re-contain her pet, but the dog found him first.
Realisticaly speaking, I don’t think an animal shelter is going to want to take the risk of finding another home for this dog. They’d be in a precarious position if that dog killed another animal. I have watched “Animal Cop” and I know that NY state does try to train problem animals to increase their chance of adoption. I also know they have euthanized dogs they percieve as being unable to change in behavior.
I also don’t think the asshat will properly restrain her even after being ordered to do so. Sad as it is, that owner has brought about circumstances that will likely lead to the death of a poor dumb brute, that wasn’t trained properly and didn’t know any better. It is for the best though, because it WILL kill again, and more pet owners will be bereft. Also, it might attack a toddler, because dogs who aren’t socialized towards other animals often also aren’t socialised towards children as well. Doesn’t New York state sometimes “ban” people from being able to own any animals at all? Seems I’ve seen that on Animal Planet. That might be something to check into, so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.
Uh, no I didn’t. They don’t want to move away from their prey. They’ll certainly chase it.
Right–and, since her animal was at-large as well, she too shares some of the responsibility. That’s all I’ve been saying.
Well, a neutral (relative to the OP and her landlord) party who’s ostensibly an expert (the “bitch” dog control officer) on such thing has characterized the dog has being sweet, and doesn’t seem to think it’s a menace…
Agreed–the owner sounds like a piece of work. Been sayin’ this too. 
I’m not comfortable at all with this logic. It’s not an issue of the dog being socialized. Socialization has nothing to do with having a prey drive. You can have a dog that’s very well socialized, with both children and adults, but still has a strong prey drive. I don’t think it’s reasonable to infer that a dog that’s demonstrated a prey drive is a danger to children. Children, even toddlers, are different then cats.
Metacom You’ve never been a child and been stalked by a large dog with a strong prey drive. I’ve both been chased, and cunningly stalked. The stalking I refer to was when I was about 11, it was a BIG German sherpard type dog, and it was creeping behind me very quietly. It was about my size, may have been heavier than me. I was small for my age. This went on for about 3/4 of a block from it’s house. I foiled it by whipping around suddenly, sliding my purse strap off my shoulder to my hand as I did so, ready to whack. (I carried a purse because I had begun to have my period and needed to be ready at any time with pads because it hadn’t set into a routine yet, I was able to do such a trick because I’d whack my younger brother with it from time to time. He was good at dodging, and quite the twerpy tease with names like “bubblebutt”.) I took a defensive basketball type stance, ready to kick and whack.
I saw this dog in mid lunge, it was poised semi-crouched frozen in mid lunge. Obviously by it’s stance had been in the middle of a leap onto my back. A fraction of second later and it would have been airborne. The dog was apparently young enough that my sudden aggressively defensive stance suprised it and frightened it off. Not before it tried to woof at me, which came out as a yawpping near woof. That dog became known for stalking and attacking very young children, I know this because a friend told me about how they watched doing so with a kid in diapers years later. The kid was hurt by the brute, and the dog was finally put down.
I’ve also had dogs chase me and nip at my heels because I was running home trying not to be late when I was much younger. Strong “prey drive” indeed. This is not responsible. It’s been my personal experience that dogs who are let to “chase prey” like that often also aren’t trained to see toddlers as anything other than prey because the owners are too stupid to see the need to do so. Chasing squirrels and birds is one thing, pets is another.
Metacom You misunderstood my point. The dog had cornered it’s prey on the OP’s porch, you’ve said dogs won’t willingly move once they’ve got ahold of prey, this is what I was saying, re-read and it will become clearer. The point is, the cat screamed when it was cornered and being injured. Seconds later the OP found the dog and cat on her porch, therefore the dog was tresspassing due to the fact that a dog won’t move if it’s got it’s jaws on prey.
Another thing, the animal control officer was hardly “neutral” on the matter, she was quite biased, re-read where the OP recounts that the officer was taking the dog owner’s side over the phone, on the first call, before she’d even gotten all the facts. Also, just because the dog is sweet to adults, doesn’t mean it will be sweet to children, and that dog certainly isn’t sweet to animals smaller than it. I’ve encountered dogs who think anything smaller than it (as I was smaller than that German Shepard, I was small for my age) is prey. A strong prey drive means it must pursue smaller things and kill them, correct? If not properly curbed, this presents serious risks.
Finally, harboring an animal that kills other people’s pets puts you in the wrong in the eyes of the law. (At least here it does.) He is proud that his dog kills things, and brags about it. This is a dangerous situation. He lets the dog run loose, lets it go where it pleases.
The location of that “prey” isn’t really an issue. The dog was allowed to run loose/wild, and it killed a pet. How do you know it’s not gone into people’s yards and slain smaller dogs that were fenced in or tied up, or other animals that were properly restrained? I don’t know it hasn’t, but it’s not a far stretch to say it has either. This is along the same lines as what happened to the OP with her cat. The dog was not restrained, went out, found “prey” and slew it. Only that prey was a pet, so therefore the owner of the dog is at fault, and the poorly trained dog may suffer for it.
It’s fully grown, I don’t think such behavior can easily be trained out of it. The owner of the animal that has the potential to cause the most harm is the one most culpable, and the OP was being responsible in that she WAS trying to locate her cat in order to bring it back inside. Would you say the same things if her cat were leash trained, and the dog attacked and slew it while the OP was walking it on a leash so it could eat some grass to settle it’s stomach? That’s not a stretch, to say such a dog would attack a leashed cat if it caught site or scent of it.
First and most importantly, I’m so sorry, Rubystreak. You loved Achmed, you did your best by him, and sometimes even the best love can’t prevent every danger. Getting through everyday life just doesn’t permit that, for anybody.
It seems to me, though, that this thread is getting muddled beyond what you intended. You’re angry, grieving and upset. I don’t want your burden to be worsened by venting here. It’s just one more instance where human emotion can collide with discussion. The strands are getting tangled, and no one is caught tighter than you.
I’ve read your threads about Achmed and won’t pick apart details because frankly, it’s cruel. I don’t understand specifics, but you shouldn’t have to defend and explicate and explain endlessly. Posting on a message board doesn’t make you a test case. In turn, please understand that your posting did toss the issues out for general discussion.
IOTW, this is addressed to the spin-off discussion…
This is turning into a golden-oldies trainwreck: cats vs. dogs, surly public servants, tenant-landlord, blah, blah, blah.
Cats AND dogs are natural predators on other animals. Often they’ll settle it among themselves but they really can’t know which other critters are pets. That doesn’t make any of them automatic threats to children. (Cue hysteria…) The most notorious animal thug in my neighborhood is a huge, agile cat named Clancey. He’s a brawler who clawed the eye out of a Yorkie, for example. Another young tom cat died after a fight. Pet on pet violence. It happens. Extrapolating human risk from that would result in most pets being killed.
As far as I can determine, the landlord is a real slime–but his dog is overall, undeservedly sweet with people. The pond scum landlord fudged around the lease agreement–in confusing terms–with the caveat that he didn’t want cats partly because of his dog. It was a very sloppy, imprecise caveat emptor and I haven’t the faintest idea how layers of landlord/tenant laws apply. I suspect he’s primarily a dirtbag who doesn’t care much about any living creature residing there, human, cat, dog or wildlife.
So enter the Animal Control Officer, just as foggy on specifics. She’s probably much clearer on laws and responsiblity, though badly lacking in tact. (Very badly lacking, IMO) Since she’s in the business she should know better than to blow off the death of a pet. She didn’t have to take sides, even though her immediate area of responsibility seemed obvious, i.e. dog with relatively free run, record of friendly relations with humans, attacked another animal roaming within its recognized territory.
Did the Animal Control Officer handle this well? Nope. She’s probably seen more dead, abused and vicious animals than anyone would want to, but that’s her job. Advising humans of their their rights, options and responsibilities goes with it. It’s possible to do that impartially, if not compassionately.
Veb
Ruby, I am truly sorry for your loss. I can only imagine the sadness the situation brings to you.
The only part of your story that confuses me is this:
Negligent I can totally understand, but greedy? I don’t see how greed comes into it. The only reason I ask is because you emphasize the word greed and maybe I am just not understanding that.
Rubystreak,
I would like to add my condolences to all the rest. Your landlord sounds like an insensitive and irresponsible asshole.
I am very confused about the statement that a cat only has a value of $10.
We brought home an adorable sweetie pie of a kitten last year. We shelled out $75 to adopt him and then another $200 to neuter him and give him all his shots. If something were to happen to him we’d get another cat and would probably incur the same expenses.
If someone caused something to happen to him wouldn’t they be liable for the expenses involved in getting a replacement pet? 
Would you expect the tenant to keep her damned cat inside? For all she knew there could be a dog out prowling around and she would be doing the cat a favor.
The OP already mentioned that she never succeeded in communicating to her landlord that her cat had escaped. No reason, therefore, to keep the dog inside.
Already dealt with.
Feh. This is going nowhere. People go nuts about their animals, and whatever happens is always somebody else’s fault.
Regards,
Shodan
Random points: My cat was standing right outside the screen door on my porch. I opened the fucking door to let him in… he was about a foot from safety (THIS KILLS ME EVERY TIME I THINK ABOUT IT) The dog came charging onto MY porch (which, despite the fact that the landlord owns the building, is still MY porch and should be free of dogs I didn’t invite) and chased the cat all the way around the building to my front door. He was about 15 feet from the other door to my house when the dog got him. It’s safe to say, then, that the cat was trying to come inside when the dog attacked him, and was actually on MY PROPERTY when the attack both started AND ended. I think, technically, if I wanted to let my cat sit on my porch, I could do it whether he verbally told me it was a bad idea or not. It was my fucking porch. He can’t just walk into my house without my permission, so neither can the dog, especially at that time of night.
The cat is worth more than $10, and YES, the law does say so. I don’t know why people persist in arguing this point when my lawyer and I have done extensive research to prove this. The law, while being totally screwed up in the criminal statute area, does have civil provisions for the fact that a companion animal constitutes a significant property interest due to intangibles like love, companionship, and friendship. People have recovered damages in these cases. I am only asking the “cost of repair” in this case, to both Achmed and myself, which is letting him off easy, if any of you known anything about pain and suffering amounts people can ask for and do get.
GREED comes into it when you have an apartment standing open at an odd time of year with no one to live there, and you’re looking at losing at least a month’s rent, if not more. Then, someone with a good job comes along who could move in right away… but she has cats. You know your boss, who lives on the property, has a killer dog, but you type into the lease that this person is allowed to have cats anyway, don’t tell her about the dog. Then, when this person finds out about the dog (and the drunken, lecherous, partyhound nature of the landlord), she has already paid a large amount of money in moving costs and deposits, and invested a good bit of time moving in, so she’s stuck there, paying your exorbitant rent and unable to do much about the situation. Add to that a shitty screen door lock and you’ve got your recipe for disaster, eh?
Have only skimmed this thread because I saw it was up to two pages…but thanks again to people who seem to understand that the nature of my complaint here is against a public servant who felt the need to be very much lacking in compassion and tact with someone who is obviously grieving and trying to navigate the law and her own emotions. Being cruel to me didn’t help anything, it only made me think she was a bitch, which I still think in spite of her many defenders here.
You know, when my largish dogs mistook the neighbor’s little Yorkie for vermin, I thought that the only decent thing to do was to pony up half the vet bill.
Of course, if I’d know that it was going to be $1500.00, I might have settled for a card and a box of bones.
At the very least,** Rubystreak’s** landlord should offer help and apologize profusely.
And although I suspect that the animal control officer has to deal with her fair share of hysterical animal owners and may be quite callous, she had no business being rude or flippant.
And wow, the more I read the Terrible Trials and Troubling Tribulations of Zabali_ Clawbane, the more I’m just filled with shock and awe. I’m amazed that you made it to the ripe old age of 30, Zabli.
You are the 30 something Goth with the porcelain skin married to her 20 something soul mate, misunderstood and maligned by the small town yokels you live with, right?
I’ve got the slowest dial-up in the world and that precludes my doing a search to make sure I’ve got the right person but I think that’s you.
What understanding you derived from all that suffering and how good you are to share your Patented Pearls of Wisdom with us.
You’ve been raped and stalked and bullied and abused and forced to watch an exhibitionist and preyed on by dirty old men and the boy next door, all by such a tender age.
And still, you plucky creature you, you keep on going and going and going.
I can’t wait until some one starts a pit thread on being abducted by aliens and forced to bear an alien space baby or kidnapped by Barbary Coast pirates to read the next installment.
County, quit being such a jerk.
Lynn
For the Straight Dope
The animal control officer was completely unprofessional. After you cool down from your understandable anger, Rubystreak, be sure to do everything in your power to have her removed from a job that she is obviously unfit for.
As for the people in this thread who are giving you such a hard time, I don’t know why they feel the need to stick their fingers in your open wound, but try to ignore them. You don’t need to defend yourself here.