UPDATE: Whatever happened to the dogs?

Bill Affinito
Staff Writer
John Bonini
Staff Writer

Antoinette Wright stepped out of her car. Not more than three seconds passed before she saw the dogs. Two of them. They tore out of the bushes that line the front yard of her Rockview Terrace home, a short distance from the SCSU campus, and lunged at her.

Wright, recounting the January event, said she’s still haunted by the vicious incident.

“I was terrified,” said Wright. “I thought they were going to kill me.”

While some of the marks have healed, it’s the emotional damage that Wright said she keeps replaying in her head.

In the wake of problems involving roving and aggressive, feral dogs on and around Southern’s campus this winter, animal control officers and experts are drawing attention to the root cause: negligent dog owners.

Stephani Johnson, supervisor of the New Haven Animal Shelter, provided her insight as to why this problem persists.

“People let their pets loose without being spayed or neutered,” said Johnson. “When the dogs reproduce, the result is these wild dogs.”

Southern's experience with feral dogs in January included an attack on a mailman, who fought off the dogs with a can of mace, the attack on Wright and a bite sustained by a SCSU Police Officer. Incidents of students unadvisedly feeding the feral dogs prompted notices to students through e-mail that warned against feeding or approaching the dogs.

Officials told the Southern News one of the feral dogs was caught by animal control officers and was euthanized.  The second dog was hit with a tranquilizer dart, but not captured.  Johnson believes the second dog may have died.

Southern Chief of Police Joseph Dooley said he worked directly with both the New Haven and Hamden Animal Shelters while addressing the problem.

“We first became aware of the situation in early January,” said Dooley. “There were some sporadic complaints around the North Campus area regarding a litter of these feral dogs.”

Feral dogs, as Johnson mentioned, are the end result of negligent owners abandoning their pets without being spayed or neutered, a problem Maureen Griffin, Supervisor of the Connecticut Animal Control

Division, said has actually gone down over the past 20 years.

“It is nowhere near the problem it was 20 to 30 years ago,” said Griffin. “There were more landfills back at that time, allowing for more places for feral dogs to roam. It’s become somewhat of a rarity.”

Griffin credits the decrease in feral dogs to public education programs.  “We’ve tried to educate the public that you cannot free your pets, especially since the Rabies outbreak in 1991, it’s just become a dangerous thing to do.”

However, according to Griffin, the existence of landfills still provide areas for these dogs to roam, as these are the areas where it is more likely to see or hear of an occurrence.  The open areas around campus and the nearby closed landfill provide such a setting. 

“Landfills are excellent feeding sources for feral dogs,” said Griffin. “Road kills are taken to landfills, and therefore become an attractive place for these dogs.”

Johnson said the problem isn’t just finding the dogs; it’s also capturing them.

“We set up traps with domestic dog food,” said Johnson. “But the dogs are not attracted to it because they find their own food.”

There are some occasions when Animal Control must take more drastic measures, which include tranquilizers that can stun and even kill the dogs if they have become a threat to the area.

Griffin helped shed light on the precautions taken.

“There is nothing in state law that tells us what we have to do in situations,” said Griffin. “Public safety is always considered. If a dog is in the process of attacking someone, it can legally be killed without any public outcry. If the dogs are stalking livestock, they can also be legally killed. For example, we had an incident in another town where dogs were attacking horses, and we eventually had to shoot the dogs. In the incident at Southern, police choppers with thermal imaging were used because those dogs were becoming a public issue.”

Griffin said she worked directly with the Southern Police and also the New Haven and Hamden Animal Shelters in trying to rid the area of the problem.

Also active in the pursuit of the dogs was Johnson, who said one of the dogs that had attacked Wright was later captured and put to sleep. Johnson said the dog was very violent.

The other dog that attacked Wright was shot with a tranquilizer dart, according to Johnson, but was unable to be captured due to the fact that it takes 20 minutes for the tranquilizer to set in. However, Johnson said it’s unlikely the dog would still be an issue.

“We think it might’ve died because the tranquilizer slows down the heart rate,” said Johnson. “The cold weather may have ended up killing the dog. That dog has not been spotted in the area since we hit it with the tranquilizer.” 

Griffin said she is still surprised at the manner in which the dogs at Southern were able to survive.

“It is somewhat unusual for a group of dogs to remain successful,” said Griffin, who described successful as remaining both healthy and well fed. “The group of dogs in that area had a very good food source.”

Griffin also added it is hard to pinpoint exactly where feral dogs will pop up, and how they often the will do so.

“It’s difficult to say,” said Griffin. “You’re going to have roaming dogs in any places. But we’re encouraged at the fact that it’s become more of a rarity.”

As for Wright, she is still recovering from multiple bite wounds from the attack. She recalled a neighbor hurling a recycling bin scaring the dogs off of her, but the dogs lingered until animal control officers arrived.

“I’m still emotionally and physically scarred from the attack,” said Wright.

Comments

[Andrew Golding]

Those were quite intelligent dogs.