Dog at centre of N.S. court battle showed no signs of aggression: trainer
Ted Efthymiadis said in provincial court Friday that he did several behavioural tests on Brindi, a six-year-old dog who's been in a shelter since she attacked another dog two years ago.
The trainer said he believes Brindi can be trained and should be muzzled if returned to her owner.
"She's a great dog and very trainable," Efthymiadis said in court after watching a video that showed him testing Brindi.
"For a dog that has been deemed by some people to be extremely dog-aggressive, I just didn't see it."
Brindi's owner, Francesca Rogier, was found guilty earlier this year of violating an animal control bylaw after Brindi rushed out of her yard and attacked a leashed dog strolling by Rogier's home.
She was convicted of being the owner of a dog that was running at large, owning a dog that attacked another animal and failing to comply with a muzzle order.
The charges came after a series of written warnings from the City of Halifax following other attacks by Brindi. One of the city's warnings required Brindi be muzzled.
Since then, Rogier has waged a costly legal fight to have her dog returned to her home in East Chezzetcook, a rural community on the outskirts of the city.
But the municipality argues that releasing the dog poses a risk to her neighbours and their pets.
"The Halifax Regional Municipality cannot take any other position than the destruction of the dog," attorney Geoff Newton said in court.
The judge could decide to have the animal put down as a threat to the public welfare, have it returned to its owner, or hand it to a third party for continuing care.
She said she would issue her decision on April 30.
But Newton said moving it to another location would merely transfer the problem.
Rogier, who is representing herself in court, said other cases in the Maritimes show dogs that have attacked people have not been put down.
In Hampton, N.B., a judge ruled a dog be muzzled when it is outdoors despite a town order that the animal be euthanized for biting a woman last summer.
Rogier also suggested the Halifax Regional Municipality has a poor record when it comes to euthanization.
She said from January 2007 to March 2010, 31 dogs were euthanized in the city.
When asked by Rogier if Brindi should be killed, Efthymiadis said: "Absolutely not."
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ABSOLUTELY NOT.
It was interesting that the prosecutor, Newton, tried to discredit the trainer by questioning his credentials intensely. Not only did Efthymiadis remain firm in his opinion about Brindi; he is also willing to take her on as a client. And he joins two other trainers who have assessed Brindi: Silvia Jay and Bob Ottenbrite, who both have years and years of experience.
But another interesting aspect is that the prosecutor knew for months in advance that Efthymiadis was lined up to do the assessment, and never opposed or questioned him. Also, he knows that weeks earlier, Andrew Turner, a more experienced trainer from New Brunswick, was willing and prepared to assess Brindi, but at the very last minute, the SPCA - Halifax's private contractor - went back on its word to allow him to use a few of the dogs at the shelter to test out Brindi's behavior. They agreed a week earlier to this. As a result, Turner was unable to do the assessment that day, and his full schedule prevented him from doing it any other day in time for the court hearing on April 16. This was the second time trainers were blocked from assessing Brindi, and Newton knows all about it, of course. So his raising questions about Efythmiadis is of a piece with HRM's persistence in squelching any expert opinion from entering into the case. His colleague Kishan Persaud successfully blocked Jay's assessment from being reviewed by the Supreme Court in 2008. Prior to that, the city blocked any assessment from being done without a court order. This forced Rogier to have her lawyer get one from the Supreme Court, a task that racked up extra hours of his time, since Persaud dragged it out as long as possible.
Brindi's owner, Francesca Rogier, told the judge that no trainer has gone on record endorsing the city's request to kill Brindi. Naturally, in all this time that Brindi has been in its possession, HRM has never asked a behavioural expert or a trainer or anybody else to assess Brindi's behaviour in order to back up its decision to kill the dog.
Rogier also noted that in a previous case, cited by the prosecution, a provincial court disregarded a trainer's assessment of a dog and put it down, on the rather questionable notion that it would be wrong to allow it to be sent out of town. The dog was named Baby and it belonged to Thomas Roberts. Baby was impounded for four months after it was involved in one incident with another dog. Baby was a small terrier mix, never known to be aggressive to people or dogs in general. It was unfortunate that even though only one bite was detected, it scuffled with a greyhound, a breed with very fragile skin. This yielded a number of abrasions that made for frightening photos, and they doubtless elicited an emotional reaction from the court, convincing it to rule in the city's favor. The animal control officer calling for this was Tim Hamm, the same man who seized Brindi.
Fortunately for Brindi, her "crimes", though higher in number, are much less serious; there are no graphic photos, no huge vet bills, etc. And she has behaved like the lady she is throughout her imprisonment, including two assessments.
