Congo, the German shepherd gets a second chance!

It is amazing how messed up laws are getting in this country (USA) along with the media in regards to dogs.

Recently, there was an incident involving a German shepherd and a landscaper in Princeton, NJ. The German shepherd’s name is Congo and the story can be found here.

In this article it seems pretty cut and dry. The German shepherd “mauled” a landscaper. Linda Stein made this quite clear in the article:

“Guy and Elizabeth James, the Princeton Township couple whose German shepherd mauled a landscaper who came onto their property on June 5, 2007,”

Too bad she didn’t include all of the facts and painted the picture of a German shepherd running to attack the defenseless landscaper.

Copy and paste this line into a Google search bar and be the judge for yourself:
+Congo +”German Shepherd” +”New Jersey”

After the first few links you’ll see that many facts were left out of the above article.
- The landscapers were an hour early and told to wait in their truck
- It was on the dog owner’s property
- The landscapers ignored this request and went into the yard anyway
- The German shepherd did NOT approach the landscapers in any aggressive way, the wife was trying to gather them up.
- The landscaper panicked and grabbed the wife to use her as a human shield causing her to fall to the ground
- Only then, after the wife fell did the German shepherd jump in to “protect” her.

While this is clearly a case of mistaken intentions, the German shepherd did EXACTLY what many people get dogs for and I would hope that my dogs would do the same. In the dog’s eyes, its alpha (the wife) was being attacked (how many times do adults knock themselves onto the ground and it is not an attack?). The puppies that joined in were only doing what their lead-dog was doing.

The landscapers made several mistakes which lead to the dog defending the wife. Yes, this is very unfortunate but people need to realize that you do NOT grab a dog’s owner right in front of the dog especially if the dog does not know you.

Luckily, the family won appeals and were able to keep the dog (after spending months in a shelter, which who knows what kind of psychological damage was done to the dog) but pay hefty fines and live with several restrictions on the animal.

I love the closing line in the article:
“"It was a good settlement for both parties," James said. "The township got their protection and we got what we wanted."”

The township got protection from what? A dog that wants to protect its pack alphas? I guess we should let all criminals know about this township. This article (and the quote) is sending a clear message that you CAN enter someone’s property and grab someone and if their dog bites you in the act, you CAN sue them and press charges.

I guess I’m not surprised this is coming from the same state that killed Meghan’s Law and gave more rights to the child molesters than the actual victims.

Thank god that I live in an area where you CAN defend yourself and property and it’s already gone into the courts and they ruled in favor of the people protecting their property. I guess New Jersey doesn’t allow people to defend themselves (note: criminals, move to New Jersey!).