February 1, 2016 - A dog attack inside the city limits of Center resulted in injury to one man and the death of his dog on January 13, 2016 at 9am.
The man who was attacked is Jerry Green, and he says there has been a problem at his residence for a long time with neighboring dogs coming to his property and being aggressive toward he and his wife. According to Green, the dogs have entered his yard and he and his wife have to fight them off with "clubs." He says he has called the police several times, and they have responded but there's not really anything they can do, because there are no laws in effect for such incidents.
"[That] morning, the same dogs came into my yard and attacked my little poodle dog. She was in my yard, she's blind and she's crippled. They came in there and they grabbed her, and I went to trying to get her and they turned on me and tore my hand and my arm all to pieces and jerked me down," said Green.
Green says the four dogs involved carried his poodle across the street from his home to where he pursued them and was finally able to get his dog away from the pack and chase them away. Although he was able to retrieve his dog, it was too late as her injuries were too severe for her to survive.
"The police department tells me they hadn't got any kind of laws in effect. The only thing I can do is sue [the dog owners] for my hospital bill and my veterinarian bill, and that don't mean that the people have to pay it, it just means if I win in court I'll have a settlement," said Green.
According to Green another of his dogs was a victim of the same pack in October 2015, which he says inflicted 287 puncture wounds on the animal, and incurred a veterinarian bill of around $1,000.
"There needs to be something done where people have to pay for compensation for people that their dogs wound," said Green. "If they can put a ordinance up there to close a park where you can't even walk in a park at 11 o'clock at night, looks to me like they could do something to take care of the people in Shelby County, the humans."
A hunter for years, Green says he hunts hogs all the time and not a single hog has gotten him yet, because he has more ability to protect himself in the woods than at his home, within the city limits. He says he fears for any of his neighbors that have children.
Shelby County Today contacted Center Police Chief Jim Albers about the incident to learn what was able to be done in relation to the attack.
"The neighbor had five dogs, all the dogs were picked up, they're all in our custody. We will hold them 10 days, check them for rabies, and we will write the owner of the dogs a class c ticket for not having their rabies tags. That's about all we can legally do," said Chief Albers.
Chad Nehring, Center City Manager, stated that many years ago the city of Center adopted and enforces the state rabies law and the dangerous dog act. He stated if a situation were ever to occur where there is speculation on the animal having rabies, the city has the ability and authority under state law to have a rabies test performed, which unfortunately for the animal does result in its death.
"In many cases it's more of a civil matter than it is a criminal matter, but yes there are criminal charges that are available to be taken against the owner of an improperly secured, maintained or in some cases vaccinated animal," said Nehring.
According to Nehring, anyone within the city limits whose dog does not have a rabies tag can receive a ticket for that offense.
