On Oct. 28, Leroy Morley boarded a TriMet bus with his leashed dog, a 50-pound Rottweiler/Sharpei mix. The driver asked Morley if his dog was a service animal, which he, untruthfully, confirmed. The large dog was well behaved for the duration of the trip, until they were exiting the bus, when he attacked and killed another passenger’s smaller dog, which, as it turns out, was a doctor-approved companion animal that was considered a service animal.
TriMet’s rules about bringing a pet on board are pretty clear–if it’s in a cage, it’s OK. Service animals on leashes are allowed. Drivers are prohibited from asking for proof that passengers are boarding with a service animal; they are simply required to ask passengers boarding with a dog if they are legit. If the answer is in the affirmative and the dog is on a leash, then it’s allowed on the bus.
I’m sure that TriMet must be reviewing their animal regulations after this incident. It seems fairly obvious that the drivers need to be given some help in determining which animals can ride on a leash, and which go in a carrier. There’s no reason I can think of in which well trained and certified service animals can’t be issued some kind of all-access pass, is there? TriMet drivers shouldn’t be in the position of having to guess whether or not someone is telling the truth about bringing a potentially dangerous animal onto the bus.
I understand that not everyone will agree that the violent death or injury of an animal should be punishable by the same standards as a similar attack on a human being. I tend to think that pets and service animals should be equally (or more) valued than most people, but that’s another discussion. Morley lied so that his dog could ride with him on the bus, and the result was as dangerous as if he had decided to get on the bus with a loaded gun, firing it at random. How is he being held accountable for this? He really isn’t, and therein lies the problem.
Morley has been banned from riding TriMet for 30 days, and last week he made a public apology. Apparently, he “feels awful.” This is completely outrageous–he should feel a whole lot more than awful, he should feel incarcerated. He should be charged, at the very least, with assault with a deadly weapon. He has been criminally negligent, and an apology and a temporarily inconvenient commute are entirely inadequate responses to his dangerous, literally deadly, bad judgment.
Am I over-exaggerating the seriousness of this? What if the dog attacked a person, instead? I know, it didn’t, it killed another dog. But that dog was someone’s pet–and I’m certain that it has been devastating to the woman who watched as her pet was killed right in front of her. More to the point, this kind of unpredictable violence doesn’t allow for varying degrees of acceptance. What if the dog killed a child?
What if your child was killed? Suddenly a criminal charge against this irresponsible pet owner doesn’t sound so farfetched, does it?
Owning a dog should be a huge responsibility. Part of that responsibility is having a realistic understanding of the way your dog interacts in public with human beings and other animals. If you can’t provide for the safety and well being of your animal, as well as the safety and well being of those around your pet, then you shouldn’t have the animal.
I’m sure Morley didn’t expect his dog to kill anything or anyone the day he decided to hop on the bus. But I would bet that if he’s had the dog for any amount of time at all, he knows whether or not his dog will provoke fights, or if his pet gets more aggressive around other dogs when it’s on a leash, or whether being around a lot of people or noises might make the dog freak out.
These are all fairly common dog reactions, reactions that responsible pet owners know about and make accommodations for (such as avoiding these situations altogether, or making sure you have physical control over the animal–or, as TriMet rules state, keeping it in a pet carrier.)
If you don’t know what to expect from your dog’s behavior, then putting it in a crowded public place and seeing what might happen is dangerous and criminally negligent behavior.
And “feeling awful” doesn’t make up for that.