Electric City deals with biting dogs

It was three dog night in Electric City.

The city council Tuesday night declared two dogs “dangerous” and a third was given a temporary reprieve.

The council didn’t take long in declaring Duke, a dog owned by Joseph Balthazar “dangerous,” and Shadow, a dog owned by Jeanie Marie French, also “dangerous.”

All three dogs were allegedly involved in biting incidents in Electric City recently.

Balthazar’s dog, Duke, was involved in a biting incident May 13, when it bit Amanda Lyn Button, an Electric City resident out jogging, about both legs. Balthazar’s dog is at 58063 2nd Street.

A second dog, Rex, a brindle mix dog owned by Mike Lowry, was allegedly also involved in the biting incident.

Lowry asked the council Tuesday night for a delay in declaring his dog “dangerous” until after a hearing he said was set before a judge in July. Lowry said it was a case of mistaken identification and that he had pictures of the guilty dog, and it wasn’t his.

The police report on the Button biting incident involving the two dogs stated that Officer Sean Cook, who responded to the scene, had to pepper spray the Lowry dog because it acted aggressively toward him. Lowry lives at 58103 2nd Street, but the biting incident occurred at the corner of Sunny Drive and 3rd Street.

The third dog, Shadow, belonging to Jeanie Marie French, of 115 E. Grand Avenue, bit Beverly E. Bowman on May 16.

That dog, a smaller female black Labrador, bit Bowman on the buttocks.

A declaration of “dangerous” sets a number of things in motion in Electric City’s ordinance.

First, owners of “dangerous” dogs must confine them inside a cage with a top on it, and place a “beware of dog” sign on the cage that can be read from at least 50 feet away.

The dog must be registered, and not taken outside the cage without a muzzle and sturdy leash, and in control of a responsible person.