ALSATIAN DOGS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 33, 8 February 1935, Page 5

ALSATIAN DOGS

ANOTHER CHARGE

ONE ANIMAL DESTROYED

Decision was reserved by Mr. W. F. Stilwell, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today in a case in which Murray Hurdle was .charged with being: the owner of an Alsatian dog which attacked a little boy in the Khandallah Reserve. He pleaded not guilty.

Outlining the facts of the case, SubInspector C. E. Roach said that the dog was tied to the fence inside the reserve arid nobody, appeared: to be in charge of it. After a little girl had patted it, it sprang at a five-year-old boy, knocked him down, and bit him on the arm. . ;

Mrs. E. E. Shaw, the mother of the boy, gave evidence for the prosecution.

For the defence, Mr. J. D. Willis submitted that there was in law no liability on the defendant, and quoted authorities in support of his contention. The wife of the defendant had tethered the dog on an 18-inch lead in a secluded, place, where it could touch nobody unless they "came near it. The dog had never been a savage one, and counsel pointed out that the mother of the boy had voluntarily allowed -the child to approacm the dog. . -

Mrs. Hurdle gave evidence for the defence. ,- -..'..".

A conviction and an order to pay costs was entered- by Mr. W. :,F. Stilwell, S.M., against Maurice West, who had appeared on .two previous occasions on a charge of being the owner of an Alsatian dog which attacked a middle-aged man in Clerm'ont Grove.

Last Friday Mr. E. Page, S,M., ordered the destruction of the animal, and today Mr. G. C. Kent, counsel for West, said that the order had been complied with. ■.■;■•'. .',;..