A dog that mauled a 9-year-old boy in Finley was killed by its handlers after they were told by local law enforcement to quarantine the animal for 10 days so it could be monitored for rabies.
Bruce Perkins, director of the Benton-Franklin Health District’s environmental health department, said Tuesday that definitive rabies tests could not be performed after the dog was killed.
“Somebody did put down the animal,” he said. “Rumor has it, they shot it in the head, and the head is the part sent in for testing.”
Shanda Reed, the boy’s mother, said officials with the Benton-Franklin Health District told her the dog had received prior rabies vaccinations and left the decision to have her son receive rabies treatment up to her. She said she doesn’t plan for him to have the treatments.
The owner of the dog, who was in jail on unrelated charges when his animal attacked the boy, will not face criminal charges, said Lt. Brian White of the Benton County Sheriff’s Office. White said there are no leash laws in unincorporated areas of Benton County, adding that dog attacks are treated as civil matters, not criminal.
Reed does not plan to sue the dog’s owner.
Reed said her son, Triston Jett, required 20 stitches to close wounds on his face. She said he is recovering well.
The boy, who was attacked while walking home from a friend’s house, was treated at Kennewick General Hospital and released later Friday night.
Reed said the dog, a medium-sized border collie mix, had a violent past.
“It’s got a rap sheet,” she said, adding that it once threatened her son and her son’s father as the two walked near property it was living on.
She also said the dog once bit a neighbor’s child, but White said the sheriff’s office had never received a complaint about the dog before Friday’s attack.
He said animals that attack people or livestock must be declared potentially dangerous or dangerous for their owners to obtain permits to keep them. At the end of 2008, 55 dogs were permitted as potentially dangerous in Benton County, while four were permitted as dangerous.
Potentially dangerous and dangerous dogs must be kept on a leash, behind a fence or in a kennel, even if they live in an unincorporated area unaffected by leash laws, White said.
The dog that attacked Triston was not designated as potentially dangerous or dangerous before Friday. After the attack, the county did designate the animal as dangerous.
Potentially dangerous dogs that escape their enclosure or attack a person or livestock are automatically deemed dangerous, White said. Dangerous dogs that escape or attack may face an increased chance of being euthanized, but White said laws regarding dangerous animals are ambiguous.
“We might end up making a change to that policy,” White said.
Most of the time, the decision to euthanize a dangerous animal is left to the owner, he said.
“If the dog is a menace to people and it’s been attacking people, normally the owners don’t want to keep it,” he said.
Most dog attacks in unincorporated areas of the county resulting in anything short of serious injury or death aren’t treated as criminal matters. A person using a dog as a weapon would face criminal charges, White said, and someone who allows a knowingly dangerous dog to run free could face a $500 ticket for a civil offense.
“I think both us and the (county) commissioners have looked into this whole deal because of the problems we’ve had with strays,” White said. “Dog bites aren’t common, but we probably have one a month. Most aren’t this severe.”
Reed plans to move her family from Finley soon, but before she does, she said she’d like to lobby the county to adopt some sort of leash law.
