Raymond woman still reeling after dog attack
By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on August 30, 2023.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com Robin Steed has good reason to know KoDyak and Dakota. She has, after all, been delivering medications to the dogs’ owner for years.The male and female German shepherds have a reputation for being aggressive, but the Raymond woman never had any problems with them until last June when they, for no apparent reason, viciously attacked her while she was delivering a prescription.
Steed normally left prescriptions for Carol Fowler on the gate to her yard, but last winter Fowler asked her to bring the medications to her door so she didn’t have to walk in the snow.
That habit continued, and when Steed made a delivery on June 24, and she noticed the dogs weren’t out, she wasn’t worried about entering the yard, especially since Fowler knew she was coming. Steed got part way to the house, however, and the female dog, Dakota, came running out. The dog was friendly, though, so Steed dropped the prescription into a basket at the door and began walking back through the yard.
That’s when KoDyak showed up and began jumping up on her. When Steed gestured with her hands and told him to get down, he attacked her.
“Something snapped,” Steed says. “I don’t even know what happened. Before I knew it I was on the ground and the dog was coming at me grabbing my clothes, biting at my clothes…then it got my shoulder and it got my head, and I kept thinking I’ve got to protect my face.”
Steed screamed for the owner, and after what “seemed like forever,” two neighbours, Barbara and Chad Nickle, ran to her aid.
“I heard a yell to ‘get down,’ “Barbara says. At first she thought the owner was yelling at her dogs as she often does, but then she heard screaming and more yelling and bolted toward the neighbour’s yard, followed quickly by her husband.
“I made a beeline for Carol’s, and as I opened the gate one dog started coming at me, and the way it was coming at me I was scared.”
Barbara picked up a board on the ground and hit the dog in the face. Meanwhile, Chad had run into the yard where the other dog was attacking Steed.
“I just happened to see somebody laying on the ground,” Chad says, and as he ran toward Steed, he yelled at the dog which had stopped its attack and was looking at him. Although prepared for the dog to attack him, and ready to kill it if necessary, Chad yelled at the dog to “get” and it ran toward Barbara.
After she had hit Dakota with the two-by-six, the dog ran off toward the house, but as KoDyak ran toward her she swung the board at him, and missed. KoDyak retreated from her but headed back toward Chad, so she threw the board, striking the dog and scaring it off, as well.
Fearing the dogs may return, Barbara and Chad helped Steed, who was bleeding, out of the yard and into a lawn chair.
At the hospital Steed was treated for punctures to the top of her head and along her hairline, which required numerous staples. She also sustained bites to her arm and shoulder. Her pants were ripped, as well, and her shirt was shredded.
“It was terrifying,” Steed says. “It makes me shudder to think what would have happened if the neighbours hadn’t heard my cries for help.”
Although it’s been several weeks since the attack, Steed and her husband Mark are still angry that both dogs were not “put down.”
KoDyak was deemed vicious, but instead of having to comply with a list of conditions in order to keep the dog, Fowler voluntarily surrendered it and it was sent back to its breeder in B.C. It was subsequently sent to a new home. The other dog remains with Fowler and was not deemed vicious after authorities concluded it did not take part in the attack.
Steed, who was frantically trying to protect herself while she was bitten about the head and body, admits she’s not positive both dogs attacked her, but Chad and Barbara are fairly certain, and say the dogs appeared to be on her when they first arrived to help
“We don’t know, but it looked like both dogs were mauling her,” Chad says. “They were coming at her from the feet and the head. They were trying to drag her.”
Barbara agrees, and says the dogs have shown aggression in the past and have lunged at them from the other side of the fence. The dogs have also lunged at other people as they’ve walked past the house. Now people who know about the dogs cross the street to avoid them. The Nickles say they’ve tried to be good neighbours despite the animals’ behaviour.
“Carol is a friend, but it’s been a hard relationship with her dogs,” Barbara says. “We do care about Carol and we don’t wish her any harm, but both dogs were involved. To what extent each dog was involved we don’t exactly know because our presence coming into the yard startled them so much that they both backed off.”
Fowler wasn’t concerned about the dogs on the day Steed was attacked because, as she points out, Steed normally places the medications on her gate instead of coming into the yard. Both dogs were also in the house, but they ran out the dog door.
“KoDyak was so excited that somebody was here to play with, and I don’t know what happened but I know that (Steed) got knocked down because he was a big dog,” Fowler says. “I still don’t believe he was a vicious dog. If he was a vicious dog he would have done a lot more damage to her than he did.”
Fowler says Dakota is a gentle dog, and she doesn’t believe she attacked Steed, at all.
“I was not out there, but my companion service dog Dakota in all the 10 years has never shown any aggression, has never bitten anybody, has never nipped at anybody, nothing like that.”
In fact, she suggests that if Dakota was involved at all, she was likely just trying to protect Steed by pulling her away from KoDyak.
“That’s why her pants were ripped.”
KoDyak, who was being trained as a companion service dog, has never been aggressive, either, Fowler insists, but she says had she known Steed was going to enter her yard and bring the medication to the house, she would have locked the dog door. She suspects Steed must have started to run away when she saw KoDyak, and the dog reacted by chasing her.
“If a person runs, a dog will chase him whether they’re playing or not. She must have done something for him to be like that.”
Fowler says she was in shock and apologized to Steed after Barbara came to her door and told her about the attack,
“I told her that I was really sorry that it happened.” Fowler also called her at the hospital and texted her the next day.
Steed and Mark are also upset with the Town of Raymond, and believe officials, including Mayor Jim Depew, should have ordered the dogs to be put down.
Fowler was fined $350, and even though the male dog was declared vicious, it could remain with its owner since the attack occurred inside the yard on private property.
“Had it been roaming, we likely would have seized it and impounded it,” says Kurtis Pratt, the town’s chief administrative officer.
To keep the dog, however, Fowler would have to comply with several conditions, including providing $500,000 liability for any injuries the vicious dog may inflict. She could have appealed the decision to declare her dog vicious, but chose to surrender it, instead.
Pratt notes there are other vicious dogs in the community, and in the past others have been put down, but he’s unsure if those were decisions of the town or the dogs’ owners.
“As far as we’re concerned, the matter is closed from a municipal perspective,” Pratt says.
Mark and Robin plan to push for changes to the vicious dog bylaw so that any dog that bites someone without provocation is automatically put down to prevent future vicious attacks.
“That has been my main goal from day one,” Mark says. “I don’t want a child to have to live with a disfigured face or have a grandma’s throat ripped out.”
Fowler opposes such a bylaw, at least in cases such as hers.
“It would have been totally different if KoDyak would have escaped the yard and bit somebody on the street. He didn’t do that.”
Steed, who believes Fowler is not physically able to control a large, strong dog like KoDyak, is upset Fowler was even allowed to keep the dog for several days after the attack and before the bylaw officer seized him. She says it’s fortunate no one else was attacked.
“It wasn’t just a dog bite, it was a vicious attack. Thank goodness nobody else got hurt. What good is $500,000 if someone is maimed or killed?” Follow @DShurtzHerald on Twitter 4
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