I posted this on Legal Matters but thought I might get more traffic here.
I have a young German Shepherd dog, who just turned 12 months old. He was recently involved in a vicious fight with a terrier.
My dog went to sniff the terrier, which then viciously attacked him repeatedly going for his throat. They had a horrendous fight, during which the owner did nothing. I had to separate the dogs several times, each time the terrier lunged back at my dog's throat, and in the process he also bit me. Eventually, I was able to get him off.
I checked over the terrier to see if he was injured. He had 3 shallow puncture wounds (tooth marks). My dog wasn't injured because he has long hair and I don't think the terrier could get any purchase on him.
The owner then posted on Facebook that her dog was viciously attacked and insinuated that my dog is a danger to children. My dog has never been involved in a fight in his life - if a dog is aggressive towards him he just backs off. However, I know that this woman's dog has been involved in lots of fights before, including a vicious attack on my friend's dog.
She reported it to the Police, who came to visit me. I told the police the truth, and he agreed that my dog was clearly not dangerous, and that he would advise her to remove her Facebook post (she has not). I told him that the dog also bit me. I have photographic evidence of the bite, but I didn't show the policeman at the time because it's on my leg and I hadn't shaved them for weeks and I was embarrassed!!
I have now received an email from the woman. She is insinuating that my dog is responsible for killing sheep as several have gone missing in the area recently. She also says she has had to visit the vets 4 times (which seems excessive and I suspect is down to her being completely neurotic) and she will sue me for her vet bills.
She says she has witnesses to the attack who watched it through binoculars. I very much doubt they will have seen the initial start of the attack, where they would have been able to confirm which dog instigated it - but if they did watch then presumably they could at least confirm that the owner did nothing while I had to separate the dogs.
Can anyone advise me on the legal situation here? Should I forward her email on to the police community support officer who was dealing with the case? Her email says that the 'policeman told me you refused to pay the vet bills' which isn't true as we didn't discuss vet bills, so can I tell him that she's misquoting him? He also told me that we would both be reported to the Council dog warden who would issue us with a warning to keep our dogs on leads in public places - which is fine with me, my dog always is on a lead while hers rarely is. A breach of this rule would lead to a further warning, so I guess at the very least I can report her if I see her dog off lead again.
By coincidence I'm seeing a dog trainer next week - it was already arranged as my dog needs training not to pull on a lead and - ironically - he gets over excited by other dogs because he wants to play with them. The dog trainer happens to be an ex-Police dog handler who acts as an expert witness in dangerous dog cases, so I'm hoping he will advise me.
I really want to reply to her email calmly stating the facts, and copying in the PCSO and the Dog warden, but I wonder whether that's the wrong thing to do?
Please can anyone give me some advice?