Innocent Until Proven Guilty????

"It's concerning to us the animal control officer offered an opinion without ever examining Niko," Cohen said. "(Niko) does not have a history as a serial biter. Even if he did it, it's his first-time offense."

"My recommendation would be to have the dog euthanized," Wilson said. "If they can't control their dog, and it sounds like it's animal aggressive, there are lots of horses on the street (and) other neighbors with donkeys and goats."

All I can say is that it is a good thing this kind of "animal control" person is not a judge.  If we can convict  and sentence to death a creature upon heresay and the lack of evidence about what happened, that defies all judicial logic.

We had a "dangerous dog" committee this past summer and I believe animal control officer was on board, and they put forth the guidelines of a new law for the town,...'if your dog is caught loose 3 times it is a potential dangerous dog and would warrant it to be checked by animal specialists ...And there was more nonsense on it. Needless to say everyone with a dog (and many without a dog) here were insensed. We do not have a big unleashed dog problem here either.

It is time to stop assuming guilt on these animals and make the animal control do their job correctly.  I have often wondered why there is not more requirements on this job description as there seems to be problems with the judgements that they put forth, esp in critical situations like the one you have posted.

Here is something that may help in providing evidence in court towards a verdict of innocence or guilt, and these in some places are being distibuted, see via this link:-
http://www.gtg.com.au/AnimalDNATesting/index.asp?menuid=080.150.180
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"Canine DNA is a simple and cost-effective way of accurately identifying individual dogs. Just like humans, every dog has its own unique DNA – just like a fingerprint"

I thought that first I read the complaint. And well, there it is.  And it is cost effective.  Why then aren't they instituting this?  I really think that animal control officer's need an education and more requirements.  This lack of effort at getting to the truth and understanding situations like this irks me.  That article is very good. And it would take all of the guesswork out of this above situation as well.

dogslife

"Canine DNA is a simple and cost-effective way of accurately identifying individual dogs. Just like humans, every dog has its own unique DNA – just like a fingerprint"

I thought that first I read the complaint. And well, there it is.  And it is cost effective.  Why then aren't they instituting this?  I really think that animal control officer's need an education and more requirements.  This lack of effort at getting to the truth and understanding situations like this irks me.  That article is very good. And it would take all of the guesswork out of this above situation as well.

Well DNA testing is certainly now available in the dog world, even now involving canine forensics which maybe comming soon to your area. Canine forensics has already been trialed and tested even in courts. As to Animal Control Officers or others involved, well there is now some training available see via this link, and which also maybe comming soon to your area:-
http://www.tmle.com.au/default.asp
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A similiar thing happened several years ago on a farm that we lived on.  We had rescued a Rhodesian Ridgeback and a few weeks later we rescued a calf whose Mother wouldnt feed it.  I bottle fed it back to health only to find it one morning with lots of blood on it and bites on the legs and neck.  I save it, but a farm worker said he saw our Rhodesian Ridgeback running from the barn.  He shot our dog.  There wasnt much we could do after the fact since it wasnt our farm or our calf.   About 1 week later I found the calf dead in the barn and a neighbors dog still on it.   I cant tell you how many times I got appologies from the man that killed our dog but that didnt help much.  Mistaken identity caused us to loose a very good dog.  I always felt like because our dog was new to us and the farm it was asumed that he was guilty.