A local woman has pleaded guilty to harboring a vicious animal in a criminal case that could set a precedent in how such matters are handled in the future.
Heather Kaiser, a 27-year-old mother of three, said she pleaded guilty in Crittenden District Court last week only because her dog was being withheld until the case was settled. Kaiser’s year-and-a-half-old pit bull, Kilo, had been confiscated on July 10 after it bit Charles Black, who was walking his dog on a leash on Maxwell Street.
Kaiser’s dog ran into the street and attacked Black, according to court records and statements from neighbors who witnessed the episode. The city has a law requiring all dogs to be leashed.
Black filed charges and police had the dog picked up by the animal control officer. Kilo was in essence taken to jail. He was held at the Crittenden County Animal Shelter, running up an $8.50 daily tab.
In accordance with her plea agreement, Kaiser will have to put up a new seven-foot high dog pen, keep Kilo – and her other dogs – penned at all times. If they are taken out of the pen, they must be leashed and muzzled. Kaiser’s plea comes with a 30-day probated jail sentence for two years, a $200 fine and $158 in court costs. She must also pay restitution to the county for housing the dog since July, which will be more than $450. Kaiser would have been ordered to pay Black’s medical bills, too, but his insurance took care of that. His treatment at Crittenden Hospital cost $763, which was paid by Medicare, according to court records.
The kicker in the case is that if Kaiser does not follow the court’s orders, she will go to jail herself, and the dogs will be destroyed.
County Attorney Rebecca Johnson said KRS 258.235 stipulates how such matters are to be remediated, but she’s not a big fan of the details of the law. It needs to be rewritten, she said, to clear up some of the ambiguous provisions. Marion City Council has discussed creating its own vicious dog ordinance to deal more specifically with particular breeds of dogs.
Council member Darrin Tabor spoke out against that idea during the last council meeting on Aug. 16.
“It’s ridiculous to consider a vicious dog ordinance. None of us are qualified to determine what breeds are vicious,” he said.
Tabor said a dog is a product of its environment and its training.
Particular breeds are not inherently vicious, he explained.
It’s unclear whether the council will further discuss the matter, but citizens appear to want something done. An unscientific poll by The Press Online in late July found that 81 percent of 262 respondents wanted tougher city laws for vicious dogs. What’s certain is that from now on, the court system might deal with them a bit differently.
Several months ago, a similar incident left a postman injured from a dog bite. The court ordered the dog to be taken out of the county. A few weeks later, the same dog tried to attack two police officers and it was shot and killed. The owner had allegedly moved it across town instead of out of the county.
Johnson said hindsight was the impetus for requiring Kaiser’s dogs to be destroyed if, as the owner, Kaiser fails to live up to court orders. Simply having the dog banned from town didn’t work last time, Johnson said, so future cases may get similar treatment as Kaiser.
The attack on Black on Maxwell Street this summer wasn’t Kaiser’s first run-in with police over her dogs. Chief Ray O’Neal said officers had been dispatched to Kaiser’s address multiple times, mostly for barking complaints. Kaiser said she solved that by putting a muzzle on her female, giving the dog anti-anxiety medication and moving its pen to a more remote spot on her lot so it couldn’t see activity that caused the dog to bark.
“I’ve done everything they’ve asked me to do,” Kaiser said.
All three of her pit bulls have been neutered. She’s raised them all from pups and says they are gentle enough that she lets them play with her twin seven-year-old daughters and six-year-old son.
Kaiser disputes Black’s claim that the dog bit him although three witnesses signed statements attesting to the event. She said she didn’t want to prolong the case by going to trial next month because her dog was being held at the pound, running up an expensive shelter bill. Her children were upset that the dog had not been returned, she said. They had been to the pound to visit Kilo and didn’t understand why he had to stay at the shelter. Kaiser said she was satisfied with the treatment her dog received while held at the county’s shelter.
