The first two weeks of June were awesome. We found a new home to live in, we took the kids to cedar point and I went twice.
We don’t know exactly where Kenneth “Blake” Head lives. The grandpa (I believe his name is Eugene Griffith) told me he “stays” with him sometimes at 12243 Irene St., in Southgate, about 4 blocks away, but not all the time. When I went to the house to apologize and give them a card, the mother (Wendy Griffith) and child (Kenneth Blake Head) were not present, and the grandfather was very clear that they didn’t live there. They were “coming over” for a father’s day BBQ. They use that address in order to go to the school nearby. We don’t know what city he really lives in. Chris (my son, his schoolmate) has never played with him before ever (at least outside of the school playground), he’s never been to our house, but apparently they did go to school together before. I am not sure if they shared the same class. We never give our address out, and the kids have never because they aren’t allowed too and I’m not actually sure if they know it anyway. After the incident, “Blake” was brought in the house, I checked him out, and I looked at his “wounds” and none of them were bleeding or looked like they could bleed.
I would have called 911 if I thought that anything needed attention asap. At most he had heavy scratch like marks, almost bruising like. I put band-aid’s on them because kids always think band-aids make them feel better. Moose is known to “paw” at people, and some of the marks on his back and arms almost looked like claw marks because his claws were a little rough, because I even had a scratch on my face that was currently healing at the time from Moose along with chemical burn on my face (but the mother apparently thinks it’s caused by the dog mauling me or something, but I have hospital records confirming 2nd degree chemical burn). The child sat here contently with our 100lb golden retriever sitting right next to him with an ice cream cone (which I also have a small video clip of). He was slightly teary about what had happened but assured me that he’s not afraid of dogs because they own a pitbull. About 25 minutes after the incident, another child showed up to our exact location too, that we also did not know, so someone knew exactly what address he was at. My son’s exact words were, “what the heck, how did he know where I live” when the other kid showed up. This other kid rode a bike with him home, and he was fine when he left, ice cream cone in hand. We couldn’t retrieve the camera footage of him leaving just fine and riding home because our disk in the computer that stores it is corrupt in places and it stopped recording about half hour after the initial incident and didn’t start recording again until June 22nd. We are currently working to try to recover the data.
They are claiming his knee wound which did bleed a little was from a bite, but it wasn’t, it was from the dog knocking him down on the driveway and him scraping his knee because I cleaned dirt and debris off his knee, and it looked exactly like what a scrape on cement would look like, not to mention by time this happened I saw this part because I was on my way out of the house, and then holding the dog. He did have a superficial wound on his back, but that was caused on the porch. Moose weighs approx. 35lbs. The child’s mother and her boyfriend came to the door about 45 minutes later and claimed they were going to “call it in” in which I said, ok, whatever. At this time I took full responsibility, in tears though wondering how it could have happened. The mother told me she was afraid of flesh eating bacteria and that she might have to take him to the hospital in case he gets it. Right there that signaled to me she was going to go after the homeowners insurance. She also stated that they owned a pitbull as well, and that the scent could have caused it, because when the boyfriend approached the door, Moose was fine until he sniffed at him and then growled. These were her own words. She also told me at the end of our conversation that it wasn’t bad enough “to call it in” and they thanked me for cleaning him up and taking care of him. The next day after feeling guilty all night long, I decided I had to make it up to the child and went to his “house” (which ended up being the grandfathers place) to deliver an apology and a gift card to Chuck E Cheese and GameStop because he told me he liked video games (after about 5 minutes the kid was acting fine in my house and telling me things he likes). I did this because of the guilt I felt because I had no idea why this happened (before I realized we had camera footage), the grandfather said they had gone to the hospital because “the wounds looked a little worse” later that night. I proceeded to tell them that as a mother of 4, from my own experience with scratches, bruising, falls, that yeah typically scratches and bruising don’t get better in a matter of hours, they usually bruise up more and then start the healing process. The parents waited until they looked worse to go to the hospital.
Two previous times the dog escaped the yard (by my own accident) through the gate after getting our lawn mower out, Moose was escorted back by complete strangers without incident at all, and I was told during one of the times that they were more afraid the pitbull down the street would attack Moose. He has never shown an ounce of aggression and is constantly training since he’s still young, via shock collar. But rarely is it ever needed, usually only with rough play with the kids (which is never aggressive, but he does like to jump and “paw”. My 9 month old, 2 year old and 5 year old pull his hair and ride him like a pony and the neighbor kids play with him ok as well. What the difference was is we have never seen this kid before, he was never invited over, and he opened our screen door while the dog was curled up in the chair next to it, reached in and I assumed knocked on my inner door which was cracked open to air out the house. At this point the dog had to have been barking. Nobody was “around”. We assume he thought “intruder” because he had opened the door. On camera, it’s obvious the child pressed himself up against the door to look in and see if anyone was around and that’s when the dog lunged out the unlatched door. We assume it was because he pressed up against the door. All this either spooked the dog, or he was protecting an “empty” house (as we were everywhere else doing stuff) I was in the bathroom cleaning with bleach which is why I opened the door in the first place (and as always make sure to secure the screen door), my husband Matthew was in the basement cleaning, and the kids were on the 2nd floor playing video games. When the dog started barking I heard my kids fly down the stairs, by the time they reached the door, the dog had just lunged out the door and they followed the dog immediately out the door and my oldest son Chris (supposed schoolmate) held him down just fine. At this point, the child started running and Moose slipped out of his collar (he has an odd
shaped head which makes this easy to do, we are now harnessing him) and chased him across the lawn to the driveway and knocked him down. I heard the commotion and flew out the door and made it onto the lawn about the same time the kid got to the edge of the driveway.
shaped head which makes this easy to do, we are now harnessing him) and chased him across the lawn to the driveway and knocked him down. I heard the commotion and flew out the door and made it onto the lawn about the same time the kid got to the edge of the driveway.
We recognize our door latch has problems, but it is second nature for us to always secure the screen door because our cat likes to push his way out and escape, it was never even about the dog escaping. In order for our door to latch, it has to be slammed shut or literally pushed shut. We know this, my neighbors know this, my UPS man knows this (since a complaint was made a year ago regarding him leaving it open and the wind catching it and breaking it), and all our neighbor kids know what to do at our house. They are not permitted to open the back gate which we have chained shut. They know they have to hop the fence, and only when my kids are out back and are invited in. We have no problems with meter readers and my dog, not the mail person, nobody. Moose has followed me out of the house on a couple occasions to get the mail and the mail lady pets him and I escort him back in. He is not an aggressive dog says Animal Control. He was a “little territorial” in his description of him to me, but I think dogs are rightfully so. I have been more than forthcoming than a typical owner would be in providing video that could either incriminate us, help us, or both. As homeowners we did everything right when it comes to owning a dog (shots, fixed, etc), except I forgot to get him licensed when we got him last September.
We only allow children over our house if both we approve, and the other parents approve and know where they are at, and the dogs are always put out back, where the kids usually end up playing with the dogs anyhow. It would be different if my kids were out front and this child happened to see them as riding by (and then I might allow them to play out front), but he knew exactly where he is going (according to footage of him arriving and stopping in front of our house), and we live the furthest away from the school and not on the same street as any other classmates and it is impossible for any kid to have “seen” where we live because there are no other children that walk that far. Most of the time the kids are picked up from school and only walked a handful of times. The only way this child knew where we lived exactly and where his “friend” knew to pick him up at was that someone physically looked up classmates names and sent this kid around to our house and/or other classmates houses to get him out of the house.
I have a small 10 second choppy video clip of the kid from our camera in the living room (worse than our outdoor one) if you want that. We go out of our way with video cameras on the property to protect us against, stuff just like this. Anyhow, It shows him sitting calmly next to me with my big dog jack roaming around. It’s not in the video but on numerous occasions while he was in my house for 20 minutes he was extremely friendly with our dog Jack (golden retriever) and didn’t have any sort of mental distress about dogs at the time.
I mean heck, the kids wrote his bike off just fine 20-30 minutes later. So, now I have to appear before a prosecutor on July 12th @ 1p.m. for the “Dog at large” charge, which is ridiculous and I will fight because he let my dog out, and the dog bite to minor with minor injuries charge. I’ll accept what they have to give me but it’s not fair. The parents should be charged with child endangerment if anything.
After a couple days in Animal control Moose was found to be non-aggressive but slightly territorial, which I’m happy a bout. I’m glad he was doing his job, and that is what that tells me. I will go to extreme measures now to make sure this crap don’t happen again. I’m proud of my dog now htat i know what really happened. If it were an adults, go for it. I have a door bell for a reason, it’s call ‘USE IT’ .
Anyhow we area almost moved…. just 3 more days and I can rid myself of my one awful neighbor and get out of this neighborhood. Iwill miss my good neighbors to my left a lot. Without them, this neighbhood would have sucked.
Well back to sleep so I can get ready and move some more stuff tomorrow!!