1) The homeowner’s brother owns a temporary staffing agency that companies use for temporary workers. The gardeners were apparently employees of his brothers firm. They were there to work as ordered and were therefore NOT tresspassors unless one is a tresspassor for showing up to work a few minutes early.

2) The workers arrived early. They had been there the day before but had to leave early because of rain. The owner was getting ready to throw a party and wanted a lot of work done to prepare for it.

3) The owner yelled at the workers from the bedroom or bathroom to wait in the car while he put the dogs up. I think that shows that he clearly that it was not safe to leave the dogs out with the workers present. The owner was reportedly getting ready to take a shower, but I couldn’t find anything about whether or not he went ahead and took a shower before seeing to the safety of his workers.

4) After 10 to 15 minutes, one worker got out and started raking. Maybe he believed that the owner had put the dogs up — he certainly had plenty of time to do that by then. In additon, the man’s wife came into view without the dogs. If I were in the same position, I would have thought that the dogs had been put up and I could get to work. In any event, the gardener who was mauled got out as well and got ready to work. I haven’t seen anything about how long they were out of the car before the dogs attacked them.

5) The dogs then came around the corner and ran barking at the workers. This seems to be when they discovered that the dogs had not been put up as the owner had promised.

6) The gardener with the rake used it to try to keep the dogs away. Those trying to blame it on the gardeners describe it as him swinging it at the pups and hitting them. Other reports seem to indicate that he was using it to fend them off which, in my opinion, is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

7) There is a question of whether one of the pups was injured by the rake. The animal control officer examined the dogs and found no indication of any wound after the attack. While he might easily have missed seeing a minor wound, if the worker was wildly hitting the dogs with the rake as suggested by some, there would have been a number of quite visible wounds that would probably have required emergency treatment by vetenarians. Therefore, I do not find the claims that he was repeatedly striking the dogs with the rake to be credible.

8) The big dog, Congo, attacked the other gardener who sought protection behind the homeowner’s wife. Putting the owner between you and an attacking dog is a reasonable thing to do. But in this case, she could not control the dogs — they completely ignored her efforts to stop them.

9) The worker fell down, but I don’t know why. Maybe he tripped on something. When the owner’s wife tried to help him up, she fell down on top of him and that’s when the dog began to maul the gardener. The pups joined in as well.

10) The attack went on for three minutes or longer. The dogs paid no attention to attempts by the owner’s wife to stop the attack. She clearly had no control at all of their actions.

11) The worker received 96 bites in the attack. This was far more than would have occured if the owner and his wife had sufficient control of the dogs. I suspect this to be the main reason that the judge declared Congo to be a vicious dog.

12) The pups were not vaccinated for rabies in spite of being past the age that they probably should have had their first vaccinations. I haven’t found anything about whether Congo was vaccinated at all.

13) The gardner required 65 rabies shots. Post-exposure prophylaxis for rabies generally requires the vaccine to be injected into the wounds as well as into the arm. There may have been clusters of bites that only required one or two shots to cover several bites.

After everything is said and done, I think that it was an unprovoked attack on the gardeners exacerbated by the fact that the owners were unable to exert proper control over their dogs.

So what errors have I made in my understanding of the events?

I’d sure like to know, too. Bet it’s listed in the lawsuit. Good idea to find out the name and boycott the company whose employees have a hard time following customer instructions.

BTW - you DO know that a Superior Court Judge just sent Congo home to be with his family. Of course, the appeal is still yet to come and the killing is still a possibility.

http://www.nj.com/centraljersey/

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/st.....id=5759979

“Although a euthanasia date was postponed pending an appeal, the family was distraught. Owner Guy James, a 46-year-old businessman and his daughter, Hannah, 11, broke down before television cameras just after the ruling.”

The Times, Princeton, NJ - Nov. 14

http://www.nj.com/timesoftrent.....thispage=1

While I do certainly feel sorry for the child that was bitten by the dog, it’s be my experience that dogs don’t attack until they are provoked or they are fearful. We will never know exactly what happened prior to the dog attacking that child, but I will say this: parents need to start parenting. If you are unsure if your child is safe around an animal it is YOUR responsibility to be right there and to supervise. Not in another room or another part of the house. Parents need to stop shirking their duties and stop blaming others for their shortcomings.

Richard,

i agree. as a raw feeder, i am certainly not creating a vicious dog, or cats for that matter! and yes, we feed rabbit here!~