The Mae Bachur Animal Shelter is “baffled” by reports that a dog became aggressive within weeks of being adopted.
Now the shelter is seeking release of the dog, which is scheduled to be euthanized next Wednesday by Whitehorse bylaw services.
“Never did he indicate, even when he was in pain, any signs of aggression,” said Steers.
“He was an excitable dog, full of joy, and for him to go from that state to attacking somebody and biting them, what happened to him?” she said.
Matthew Allaby, who calls himself the dog’s owner, claimed Trevor bit two friends and his landlord—prompting him to turn the dog over to bylaw services to be destroyed.
It’s the second time Trevor has been in bylaw’s possession.
Officers seized Trevor from a McIntyre Village home last summer.
Tied up and neglected in the backyard, a chain had been allowed to grow into the dog’s neck.
After the chain was removed through surgery, Trevor was left to recuperate at the shelter.
Allaby claimed shelter employees had withheld Trevor’s troubled past from him when the dog was adopted.
“If I had known that, I would have known that there’s going to be problems with the dog and he’s probably going to be violent because of it,” said Allaby.
But according to shelter records, Matthew isn’t the animal’s owner.
The dog was officially adopted by his sister Tamara.
“She was considered a suitable owner and, if we had seen (Matthew), we might not have thought the same thing; I can’t tell you that because I don’t know him,” said Steers.
“And I don’t think anyone in the shelter has met him either.”
“According to the adoption agreement Tamara Allaby signed, she was required to return Trevor to the shelter if she could not keep him, and she should not have given Trevor away to her brother,” said an official humane society release.
Both the shelter and the bylaw officers who seized Trevor have noted the dog’s flawless behaviour record.
“Having a collar imbedded into the dog’s neck does not cause a dog to become aggressive, and the shelter’s experience with Trevor showed him to be well behaved,” said a release.
“On the rare occasion that a dog does display aggressive behaviour towards anyone at the shelter, that dog is not made available for adoption to the general public until they have successfully completed an appropriate course of training and evaluation, it added.
Bylaw has rejected all offers from the shelter to take Trevor back into care.
“(They said), ‘No way are we giving the dog back because of the liability issues,’” said Steers.
“I don’t know what to say or what we can do,” she said.
However, if Tamara Allaby, the dog’s official owner, stepped up with a “plan of action,” bylaw would free the dog, said Steers.
“He should have been returned there when his adoptive owner was not willing to keep him,” said the shelter.
Contact Tristin Hopper at
tristinh@yukon-news.com