OWASSO, Okla. — An Owasso woman is calling for pit bull owners to take accountability for their dogs after her own dog was recently killed.
Amy Shields said a pit bull attacked and killed her 10 pound Dachshund, Chloe, this past Wednesday in her Owasso neighborhood.
“This was a vicious dog and it was a vicious attack,” she said.
Shields was devastated and hurt. She said she made a report with animal control and was told there will be a hearing this week to decide what happens with the dog.
Shields said she wants actions and change and that all pit bull owners need to take accountability for their dogs.
“If your dog this for absolutely no reason, you need to take responsibility,” she said.
Russ Kimber lives just down the street and said he wishes he would have reported when the dog attacked his dachshund this past summer. His dog survived.
“This particular dog is a pretty aggressive dog, It’s actually attacked my dogs. If I hadn’t been there to grab it...I grabbed it by the collar and pretty much choked it out. It really upset me at the time,” he said.
Kimber said the owner needs to recognize the dog is aggressive.
“You have to take responsibility for your pets you really do,” he said.
According to Oklahoma law, a dog is only considered ‘dangerous’ if it dog attacks a human unprovoked or kills a dog after being considered a ‘potentially dangerous’ dog.
A ‘potentially dangerous’ dog is considered a dog who had bit a human unprovoked or killed a dog unprovoked.
The law reads that only dogs marked as ‘dangerous’ have regulations and precautionary statutes that can carry criminal charges if violated.
Ted Summers owns Torchlight K9 in Tulsa. They specialize in dog training for law enforcement and also train pets from puppies to pit bulls and other large breeds.
“We run the gambit from behavior modification to puppy obedience and we also do a lot of law enforcement training,” Summers said.
Summers said that all dogs who are considered aggressive breeds are considered that because of a genetic pre-disposition.
“Those types of behaviors are hard wired before birth and a lot of times we can’t out train them, we have to teach owners how to manage them.”
He said some dogs are aggressive to protect resources and territories and other dogs were bred for decades to hunt.
“As a breed standard they were bread for hunting, they’re bred to hunt and kill small animals,” Summers said.
Summers said no matter the breed or genetics, dogs can be trained to manage those genetics and live happy lives, including being good pets.
He said it takes training of the dog and the owner to understand the dogs capabilities and how to work around those.
“We train the dog and we train the owner as well,” Summers said.
Meanwhile, Shields has started a petition for legislation that would flag residences that have potentially dangerous dogs living in them. She hopes some kind of change like this will prevent other small dogs from the tragedy that happened to Chloe.
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