How to avoid a dog attack and the charges you could face

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Not taking the proper precautions for your pets can be costly. Before you and your dog leave your property; the parish ordinance requires you to have your dog on a leash with their name tag on their collar. Animal Control and Rescue says it’s always best to be aware of your surroundings while taking them out.

“When we walk if there’s people walking on our side of the street, we’ll move to the other side just to be safe,” said local Eric Alborn.

It’s also your responsibility as a pet owner to make sure your dog is up to date on all their shots, especially the rabies vaccine.

“Whenever we adopted him the adoption fee came fully vaccinated against everything,” Alborn added.

But director of East Baton Rouge Animal Control and Rescue, Daniel Piatkiewicz, has some tips for you if you need to defuse a situation if your dog goes up against another dog, or worse another person.

“You would just go probably for the vital areas of the dog. I mean like the abdomen like the spots where it’s soft tissue or if you want to kick the dog in the stomach or poke its eyes or something like that. Sometimes you can get a stick and shove it in the dog’s mouth to try and get it to let go. That kind of thing,” said Piatkiewicz.

Failing to take the necessary steps to keep your dog from attacking others could land you with criminal charges. Defense attorney Franz Borghart says there is a big difference between a leash snapping and a dog being allowed to roam free.

“If your dog is not up to date on its shots and harms someone and gets that person sick with rabies, depending on what happens to that individual, you could be looking at something closer to negligent homicide than the running wild. Long story made short, be a responsible dog owner and if you can’t handle the responsibility of owning a large Pitbull don’t own one”

If you’re concerned about a dog wandering without a leash in your neighborhood, you can call animal control at 225-774-7700.

Click here to report a typo.

Copyright 2022 WAFB. All rights reserved.