Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 1, 1994 TAG: 9406010068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The dog's owners have 10 days to appeal.
Babs had bitten at least two other children, although their wounds were less severe than those of Ashley Walton, who had 16 stitches for two bites on her head.
The mixed chow has been quarantined at the Montgomery County dog pound since May 15, when Ashley was bitten while playing in her yard.
On Tuesday, General District Judge John Quigley ruled that the dog should be destroyed based on a county ordinance that allows dangerous animals to be killed if they pose a threat to the public.
The first incident involving Babs occurred in Salem around Easter 1993, when an 11-year-old boy was nipped on the leg when he tried to take a plastic egg away from the dog because he was afraid she would choke on it.
In October, Babs bit another child who tried to pet the dog as Babs was eating.
In the petition seeking the dog's death, County Attorney Roy Thorpe cited the October incident, which he said gave "notice of the dog's propensity to attack and the threat to the public."
Donna Reed, Ashley Walton's mother, testified that the dog got free from its chain and bit Ashley as she played on a swing set while Reed worked in her flower garden.
"She's swinging her head and slobbering and going off," Reed testified of the dog's actions.
Reed said she was bitten as she tried to separate the dog from her little girl. And Reed said the dog also bit her younger son last summer.
But Audrey Scott and her daughter Courtney, the dog's owners, told Quigley that the dog only was reacting to provocation from the children. In the two biting incidents before May 15, Babs was chained in her own yard when the children approached the dog, Audrey Scott said.
She pleaded guilty to charges of allowing the dog to run at large and having an unlicensed dog.
The Scotts asked the judge to spare the dog's life so it could be moved to Roanoke where Scott said a family friend wanted to keep it penned and breed it.
But Thorpe argued against that.
"The dog has a propensity to be dangerous. ... To simply shift it to Roanoke ... is just transferring the danger to another locality," Thorpe said.
"The children come first. The dog comes second," Thorpe said.
Audrey Scott told the judge the bite could have been avoided if the child had been supervised.
"If the dog had been chained ... it would not have happened, period," Quigley said. Given this was not Babs' first offense, Quigley said there was enough evidence to warrant having the dog destroyed.
"I don't think there's a place in our society for a dog that bites people," he said.
by CNB