Seven – a pit bull who entered a Winfield home in May and mauled a teacup poodle to death – is vicious and should be humanely destroyed, Cowley County Dist. Judge Jim Pringle ruled Thursday.
Pringle became the second local judge to make such a determination. Municipal court Judge Tom Herlocker made the same ruling in the spring and his order was appealed to the district court by the dog’s owner, Aaron Cole.
Cole was cited for dog at large and no city dog license at the time the incident occurred.
Pringle did allow Cole until Oct. 29 to file appropriate paperwork for an appeal and to pay off more than $900 in boarding fees for the dog, which has been housed at the Cowley County Humane Society shelter since the incident May 15.
If Cole appeals, and the money is paid, the dog will not be euthanized and could be housed at a private residence in a rural part of the county while the appeal process continues.
Chris O’Hara, a Wichita attorney hired by Cole, said a decision whether to appeal had not been made.
“Obviously we’re disappointed with the way the ruling went today,” he said, shortly after court recessed. “We’ll have to discuss it. But I know they (Cole and family) want to do everything they can to keep the dog alive.”
After eight years, O’Hara said, the black, male pit bull “was just like any other pet, a member of the family.”
Pringle’s ruling followed more than two hours of testimony from prosecution and defense witnesses.
The day turned emotional for Linda Wolff, whose small poodle, Patches, was killed when Seven and a female pit bull, Bella, entered Wolff’s home in the 1300 block of E. Sixth. Wolff wept as she recounted hearing barking and yapping in her bedroom early in the morning the day of the incident.
She flipped on the light to find a black pit bull in her room with her small poodle in its mouth. Seven dropped the poodle and fled the room, she said. The female pit bull stayed behind and Wolff coaxed her into the laundry room until police arrived.
Under cross examination, O’Hara pressed Wolff to acknowledge that, in her initial statement to police, Wolff said she didn’t know which dog had attacked her poodle. It was later that she recalled seeing Seven with the poodle in its mouth.
After repeated questions about her initial statement, Wolff became upset.
“I was in shock, I don’t remember what I said,” she said.
Wolff then pointed at Cole, who was sitting at the defendant’s table and replied sternly to O’Hara.
“It’s his fault,” she said, as she became increasingly flustered. “He let his dogs run loose.”
Shortly thereafter, Wolff, who told the court she suffers from various health issues, began to weep more intensely and court was recessed for a time.
Wolff has faced criticism from supporters of the pit bull, because she slept with her backdoor open the night of the incident. She told the court she did so because she was pet-sitting for her sister and had a dog in the house with whom Wolff was unfamiliar in terms of nightly bathroom habits.
Wolff was asked to draw a diagram of her fenced-in backyard and deck area. She said gates to the backyard were closed to outsiders.
Prosecutor Bill Muret also called police officer Gary Bortz, the primary investigator of the incident, and local veterinarian Dr. John Johnson.
Johnson testified that the dog growled and lunged at him when Johnson visited the Humane Society shelter in August. Muret asked Johnson to visit to determine if the animal was indeed a pit bull.
The doctor told the court it was his opinion the animal was aggressive. In 38 years as a practicing vet, he said, he’d never heard of a dog entering into a stranger’s home seeking prey.
Johnson said it was predatory behavior from an aggressive animal. Once the animal displayed such behavior, it would be less trustworthy around people and other animals in the future, he said.
The defense called family members, friends and Cole himself to testify. All described Seven as a mild-mannered, loving, family dog that acted just fine with human and animal visitors.
Stacey Rowley, a girlfriend of Cole’s for four years, said she and others had visited the dog at the animal shelter. At times, Rowley had been face to face with the dog at the shelter and never witnessed aggression. Rowley wiped away tears when the judge ruled Seven vicious.
Cole talked of raising Seven since the pit bull was just a puppy. He has two young children who had grown up around the animal since birth.
Seven had been around plenty of other animals and the family cat, he said.
But, as Wolff had been earlier in the proceedings, Cole was confronted with a statement he is said to have made to police the night of the incident.
A police report indicated Cole had contacted police when he realized his dogs had fled his home in the 400 block of College.
When told his dogs had been found and taken to the city’s temporary post-capture facility, Cole, according to police, was concerned about whether other animals were at the shelter, because his dogs “don’t like other animals.”
Muret inquired about the statement as he cross-examined the defendant.
“I don’t remember saying that,” Cole said.
In addition to offering witnesses that attested to Seven’s good behavior, O’Hara also argued that the dogs in Wolff’s home could have been outside and provoked the pit bulls to go inside.
Pringle began to explain his ruling immediately as closing statements in the trial concluded.
It was clear, he said, that the pit bulls entered the home of their own volition. Pringle said he had run through scenarios in his head in which the pit bulls might have been sufficiently provoked, by the smaller dogs, to enter Wolff’s yard, then her home and continue inside.
He could not think of any.
As to the question of whether Seven was the culprit, and not the second pit bull, Pringle said he was inclined to believe Wolff’s statement about seeing the dog in Seven’s mouth. Though she had not stated that immediately after the incident, the judge said, she was clear on that point when questioned about it.
Even without that statement, he said, there was evidence Seven was to blame.
It was Seven, who bolted from the room as the light came on, Pringle said, when the other pit bull calmly stayed behind and was approachable. That dog was subsequently returned to Cole and his family.
Evidence supported, beyond a reasonable doubt, the idea that Seven entered the home unprovoked, attacked the poodle and left it dead in a puddle of blood on the floor, the judge said.
Cole owes the court for fees, boarding costs and small fines associated with the case.