REGARDING DOGS.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1168, 17 April 1874, Page 4

REGARDING DOGS.

During the hearing of a case tried in one of the up-country Courts last week the liabibility was pretty clearly defined of the owners, or reputed owners, of the hordes of vagrant curs with which the towns on the "West Coast, and particularly those on the goldfiolds, are infested. The cause of action was the destruction of a number of sheep the property of the plaintiff by the dogs of the defendant and the plaintiff obtained substantial damages, although it was alleged and scarcely denied, that he had deliberately killed one of the dogs, a very valuable animal, in fact worth more than the cost price of the sheep destroyed. The Amended Dog Act of 18G5 was quoted by the Magistrate in support of his judgment, and a better acquaintance on the part of the public at large with the provisions of this very useful, but apparently not extensively known piece of legislation would go far to abate one portion of the dog nuisance so frequently complained of. It is a popular delusion that if a dog, running at large, commits au outrage on person or property the owner of dog must be sought out and sued civily by the persun who suffers the injury, who must also prove the ownership of the offending animal. So far from this being the case, the Act provides that any one can killed a dog if the brute is seen attacking a person, or if seen worrying or biting cattle, or sheep, &c, The Statute even goes further, for if the owner or agent of the owner, of grazing stock, observe a strange dog ruuning among the cattle, the interloper may be destroyed at onco with impunity. It is not necessary that the person whose property is injured by a stray dog should prove that the animal possessed, or was likely to exhibit, or actually showed a malicious propensity ; it is sufficient that the dog was where it should not have been, and where it could or might have inflicted injury to justify its immediate destruction. Or if any one suffer personal damage indirectly through the attack of one of these vicious and cowardly brutes (such as in the case of a rider being thrown from a horse and injured, in consequence of the animal shying from the rush of a dog) the owner of the clog is liable for damages. The proof of ownership is most properly a very simple process, as far as regards the person injured. The onus of proof is thrown entirely upon the person whose house or premises the dog frequents, or who permits a dog to follow him, thereby raising a presumption that the dog is his property, and even if a dog, which may in reality be " a passing stranger," rush from the premises of anyone, and cause injury or damage, the owner of the premises is liable, unless he can prove clearly that the dog was harbored, or was on his premises without his knowledge or sanction. A closer study of the law on this subject by the members of a verj numerous class, who imagine that because a dog is not found chained up on premises or places belong, ing to them they are not responsible for depredations committed by their pets while roaming at large, would act as a warning of the risk they ran in harbor-

ing useless vagabond " tykes," and would lead to a sensible diminution in the number of these pests.. The owners of really good clogs would also do well to remember that there are not any roundabout forms of law to be gone through by injured persons to obtain satisfaction, and it might happen that for the commission of a very triflinsc trespass, or the infliction of an insignificant amount of mischief, a valuable animal could be instantly destroyed, and its owners would not have any, although the damage done by the dog would be covered ten times over by its loss.