Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunderball
To me, two things really stand out in this issue:
1. The baby was two days old, alone and crying to the extent it alerted the dog
2. The dog had enough time to somehow break out of a kennel, enter an open room and attempt to pacify the child without alerting any adult in the home?
How this situation even occurs without some negligence is beyond me. This is not the behavior of reasonable people.
Therefore, to me, a dog was "euthanized" (which is a stretch of the word here) by its owners to pacify negligence. Legally speaking, as "property", actions by dogs bring strict liability to the owner. Your dog bites someone, you're liable. You face charges. That simple.
Surrendering the dog was the right thing to do. Killing it, to me, is nothing more than an emotional impulse decision, and passing the blame on a non-culpable animal deemed safe to humans to mask their own fault in this tragedy. The family should never have had the choice. Animal Control should have taken it away from them. Killing that dog doesn't make this situation better. Period.
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Depends on your jurisdiction, there are multiple States that do not impose strict liability, and even those that do may have certain carve outs. I have no idea what the law says in Alberta tho.