The dog’s owner, Lavern Whipple, said she found out about the death of her dog Duke Sept. 11 at about 4 p.m. She said she was told a car ran over Duke about 11 a.m., and he was taken to the Piedmont Animal Clinic for treatment.
Whipple said the question of why the potentially dangerous dog was allowed to run loose at the animal shelter while she was required to construct an enclosed dog pen with a concrete floor before she could bring him home was not answered.
“A potentially dangerous dog is not supposed to be let out of its cage. If I did that, I could be fined, and my dog put to sleep,” she remarked.
Whipple said she was due to get her dog back Sept. 12 as long as the dog kennel constructed in her yard passed the inspection of Animal Control Director Tina Cole.
“For some reason Duke was let out of the pen and got into the street. It struck me as odd that this happened, and I was supposed to get my dog back the next day. When I got to see him, my dog was already sealed in a bag,” the owner stated. “I might have gotten to see him alive if they had called me earlier.”
History
The story of the potentially dangerous dog officially began when Deputy Calvin Miller presented the Board of Commissioners with evidence at their Aug. 7 meeting of three complaints received by the Sheriff’s Department about Duke, two of which Miller said he responded to personally.
The first complaint was dated June 7 reporting a woman bitten by a brown and white pit bull dog. The report of that incident states that Whipple received a citation for the dog being off leash, and the victim went to the Medical Center for treatment.
The second incident report, June 30, was a complaint by another neighbor complaining that the dog was running loose and the third complaint July 9 reported that the first victim was being chased again by the pit bull.
Following the third complaint, the pit bull was picked up by animal control, where it remained confined.
Commissioners voted at the Aug. 7 meeting to designate the dog as potentially dangerous, which placed restrictions on the dog and responsibilities on its owner. The victim was not aware, however, that the issue was before the commissioners at their first August meeting and spoke to board members Aug. 21 providing them with physicians’ records of her injuries.
Cole contacted the Department of Agriculture for guidance because the case was the first for the county. Cole told Whipple she not only needed an enclosed pen for Duke, but it also needed to be sitting on a concrete slab. While the dog was at the shelter, a $6 per day boarding fee was accumulating.
Cole said Whipple visited Duke at least once a week. The manager stated that the dog had not been aggressive to people while in her care, but he was animal aggressive.
Added complications
Whipple said she feels she and Duke were victims of an already existing problem between her fiancé’s mother and the neighbor who was bitten by the dog.
“They haven’t gotten along for years, and we got caught in the middle of it. I sent my dog to obedience school and invested a lot of money in him,” the owner said. “My dog shouldn’t have still been there. I did everything they asked of me, and they just kept prolonging it.”
Whipple said Duke’s boarding fee was over $300, but the county had agreed to let her pay $100 to get the dog back and make payments on the rest. She also said she spent $1,000 for the kennel and concrete slab so she could get the dog back.
“We spent money we didn’t have to get the kennel right. We put him through training because he was a pit bulldog, and I took the fact he was designated potentially dangerous seriously,” Whipple said.
Accident
The owner said County Administrator Mike Underwood told her Cole let the dog out, but when she talked to Cole, she found out it was a community service worker.
Underwood said Cole was very upset, and the death of the dog was a ‘freak accident’.
“Tina had grown attached to the dog and let him out for exercise. I hate that it happened, but at this point there is nothing we can do. Our condolences go out to the owner of the dog,” he said.
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