Everyone please help! Broward County's New Dangerous Dog Law has put my babies in jeopardy!
Our Story:My neighbors dog was in my yard aggravating my 2 dogs, while being provoked one of my dogs pushed the gate open (which unfortunatly had not been properly relocked by my lawn maintenance company) and escaped. The two dogs began to fight in my yard, unfortunately the other dog, a Yorkie did not make it. I am at my wits end!!! They claim it was in their yard when it was not. After seeing my dog escape I ran out and stopped the fight, my dog let go instantly however I have a Staffordshire terrier and she is 66 lbs and the other dog was very small. This was a horrible accident but with the new law they will put my dogs down since the neighbors can't seem to get their story straight. We are talking a matter of inches, now how can they kill them for a matter of inches. These are my kids and taking them away is wrong. I feel horrible about what happened and paid all the expenses for the vet in order to try and save the Yorkie's life. The neighbors have even said it was not our fault and the Animal Control has even said they are not dangerous but with the neighbors constantly changing their story my dogs still sit on DEATH ROW. Please help me save my dogs!!!
How to Help! Please sign the petition and pass it along, we need all the help we can get!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-my-dogs-from-the-new-broward-countly-dangerous-dog-law
Our Website: www.savecaymenandhaley.com
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
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Well we received the official notice from Broward County stating that have cited me $512.50 per dog and that I now have 10 days to appeal this or they will be killed. i have already contacted an attorney. The funny thing is that the State of Florida Law states...
767.11 Definitions.--As used in this act, unless the context clearly requires otherwise:
(1) "Dangerous dog" means any dog that according to the records of the appropriate authority:
(a) Has aggressively bitten, attacked, or endangered or has inflicted severe injury on a human being on public or private property;
(b) Has more than once severely injured or killed a domestic animal while off the owner's property;
Now here is Broward County's Law..now how can a county law out rule a state law?????
Dangerous Dogs: Section 4-12
A “Dangerous Dog” is a dog that has done the following:
A dog that when unprovoked approaches a person in a menacing fashion or with an attack attitude.
A dog that has killed or caused the death of a domestic animal in one incident, while off the owner’s or keeper’s property.
Has aggressively bitten, attacked, endangered, killed or inflicted severe injury on a human being on public or private property.
Has been used primarily or in part for the purpose of dog fighting.
If a dog – whether or not the dog has been classified as “dangerous” -- causes severe injury or death to a person OR domestic animal while unprovoked and off the owner’s property, an Animal Care Officer will impound the dog. Written notice will be given to the owner and after ten (10) business days from the date of notification, the dog will be humanely euthanized.
This is terrible! These dogs have been in our family for such long time and mean the world to us obviously. They have been nothing but the sweetest dogs, and anyone that have ever met them can confirm this. (Just look at the pictures) This was clearly an accident and to put both of our dogs to sleep because of this is simply wrong! It's a tragedy!
Today there is an important meeting at the Plantation courthouse in regards to the 4 huskies that are in the same situation as my babies. We will be attending to show our support and to see how the system really works.
We ahve received tremendous support from many online animal communities and all have been postive. WE MUST SAVE CAYMEN AND HALEY along with all the other animals that have been subjected to this aweful Broward County law that is in violation of the Florida law.
Here is the latest update.....we now have a civil suit filed agaisnt Broward County since their law is in violation with the State of Florida law and also my city oridenances, Pembroke Pines. That hearing is not schedualed until Dec 19th. We still have the hearing for citations on the 24th of October so hopefully we will be found not guilty and will not need the civial suit. They have been moved to a different location so they are no longer on DEATH ROW. The new place (VCA Animal Hospital) allows us to take them out and play in the fenced in yard with them so at least they will get some excercise...since for the 20 days they were at Broward County Animal Control they NEVER let them out of their cage. When I saw them last they were in horrible shape, both dogs were eaten up with bites, Heley had hives all over her from stress and Caymen had sores all over his tail. The vets at VCA are taking good care of them now but what they have been subjected to is borderline animal cruelty. Well that is the latest for now if anything else happens I will keep you all informed. Thanks for all the support, this has been very rough on our family.
If your dog did in fact maim and kill another dog it might be impossible for you to win this fight. Just speaking from experience/ I went through the same thing and the court was not lenient. I feel so bad for you but classifications of viscous dogs are there for a reason. If your dog killed another dog then it is, in fact, viscous.
Well Broward County animal control is up to some strange things. The citation hearing I was supposed to have on the 24th of Oct has been rescheduled until the 19th of December, same day as my civil case against the county….coincidence???? Also they came out on the 13th and gave me different citations since the old one was in conflict with their “new” law….they can’t seem to manage to get their own stuff straight.
Our dogs have been moved to the VCA animal hospital and are doing much better, even though when they arrived they were in horrible shape, my female had hives and bites all over her and now she has kennel cough. My male had bites all over him and his tail had blisters and was missing hair, so it has now cost me around $700 to get them back to being somewhat healthy after their horrible stay at the AC facility.
Jason Wandner(our lawyer) is working very hard for us and we have also found out that not only is Broward County in conflict with the Florida State law but with Pembroke Pines as well…so we have multiple things working for us.
We decided that we would not have the Dangerous dog hearing even though we could possibly win, we just don’t trust the system and the people involved so we want to fight the law since that is the problem. So for now we wait and get to pay a lot of money for our dogs to be away from us, we are going to try and ask for them to be moved home until the civil case but don’t know if they will let us….hoping so since the boarding bill will be astronomical at the end and if we do prevail then Broward County will have to pay for it, you would think it would be in their best interest to let them go home, with restrictions of course, so that they will not have so much to pay later when we win, and we will.
Well I guess that is all for now, this has been very hard on all that has been involved and it is really taking a toll on everyone mentally, financially and physically. We hope this will be resolved soon so that we can try to resume our life.
This is a horrible accident I feel for you so much.
I really hope you win this fight.
At least in this case your dogs were under provocation and it was not negligence on your part with regards to the catch since you say it was the lawn company.
I think you have a great chance here. I hope you keep your dogs.
Just wanted to briefly let everyone know what is going on on our end. So today we had a hearing to 1. ask the court to allow ANOTHER case to be joined with us...1 rottie vs a stray cat. 2. We were also asking the court to stop the county from killing any more animals at least until the civial suit is settled and 3. For the court to allow all 7 dogs to be returned home until the case is settled.
So as for #1 they were allowed to join our case...just seems that more and more people are being effected by this...this needs to end soon!
For #2 our lawyer needs to file additional paper work in order for this to take place...unfortunatly in the meantime all the people who cannot afford to fight for their animals they WILL DIE!! This is horrible since if we win then they all died in vain...this is insanity!!!!
So now to point #3.........we were not allowed to take them home today BUT the judge is sympethetic to our plight and has asked that our lawyer file another paper and we will reconvene next Friday for her to make a decision...we are very hopefully since if she was not going to allow this then she would have ended it right then and there....just a matter of legal crap..BLAH BLAH BLAH.
So that is where we are right now...we really have to get them back both dogs are getting very sick and have had lots of problems since they left us....stress alone is going to kill them soon and thew amount of bills we are incurring is going to break us...
Thanks to all of those who have help support us though this, you will never know how much this has meant to our family!
We're facing a similar situation in Orange county where my dog slipped out of his leash after the vet shaved it when he scratched it silly. He ran into the street and hurt a neighbor's cat. Although thank God the cat is alive we're facing a lot of beaurocratic red tape and unanswered questions. I was unable read your post about your dogs coming home but I hope everything worked out for the best for you!
to annonymous in orange county:
pitbull grandma, skoverly@gmail.com
We are in a terrible situation and need advice from everyone. My six year old granddaughter rescued a 3month old pit bull two years ago. This female named Beauty was then raised in a home with mom and dad, sister age 4 and brother age 8. Also there was a 12 year old springer spaniel, a two years old St. Bernard, and two guinney pigs names fluffy and guinny. Unfortunately for Beauty there were no cats for her to learn to love, as she did so well with the other animals. One week ago the St.Bernard got out the side gate and Beauty went with him. As they ran down the block they came upon a cat. The cat ran Beauty chased, caught the cat and shook it unconsciese.(bad spelling) They called animal control and were taken into custody. The cat was treated for lacerations and is now home. They released the St. Bernard and will not release Beauty. My daughter has been charged with a feloney. My son-in-law was out of town. I truly believe that if this had been a beagle or golden retriever
Hi, first I am an animal lover and love every breed, I had dogs (dobermans, great danes, hunting dogs, you name it...), but it come to a point were priorities have to be considered. A lot of pitt bull owners (not all) are not responsible owners, those dogs need to be watch and trained properly. Any animal is not 100% secure, there are still animal, even when we got tendency to consider then close to a human being. That breed specifically were breed for fighting, consequently, do take them for granted and think about others who do have dogs and love them has much as you love yours. Lets keep it in perspective!
This is from the dog owner comment: I meant not to take them for granted, and also please look at the statistics... Thank you for reading.
Hi, well be sensible, well-all described Interesting article, added his blog to Favorites
@Dog Owner - please note that pit bulls were not originally bred for fighting. They were bred for protection and companionship or as working dogs, just like many other breed - mastiffs, rotweilers, dobermans, etc. If you want to look at a dangerous dog, look at cocker spaniels. The tend to get more aggressive as they age and are not good with kids.
You have labeled this as a Broward County Law am I wrong or isn't this a State of Florida law?
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