GRANBY — The Select Board is moving ahead with plans to review and rewrite the town’s leash laws in the wake of a dog bite incident at Dufresne Park in which a resident suffered an arm laceration — with the couple who were victims of the recent attack offering to help in that effort rather than pressing charges.
Karl Lindberg approached the Select Board during its July 29 meeting to discuss a unleashed chocolate Labrador who jumped on his wife, Nicole Remy, during her walk in Dufresne Park. Lindberg alleges that the dog made contact with Remy’s skin, either through bite or scratch, and caused “her to bleed considerably.”
“Nicole was visibly shaken,” Lindberg said. “It’s something that really affected us. Walking those trails and the streets of Granby is something we love to do.”
Lindberg and Remy have decided not to press charges, and instead focus their efforts on changing the town’s leash law, which Lindberg called “too subjective.”
Currently the leash law allows dogs to be unleashed outside of the owner’s property if the dog is within the owner’s view and has good recall. The bylaw also prohibits a dog from venturing onto other residential property. That “run-at-large” dog laws allows unleashed dogs off private property if they are “in sight and under voice command,” Lindberg noted.
“That could change in a heartbeat, in my opinion,” he said. “The dog could see something like an animal. It could be the way the person is approaching that could change a dog’s normal behavior.”
The Select Board and Town Administrator Christopher Martin not only agreed with Lindberg, but asked if he’d be willing to work with them to change the law. Martin added that the previous Bylaw Review Committee had looked at changing the leash law to make it stricter in 2021, but never finalized a bylaw.
“We have been lucky that something serious hasn’t happened,” Select Board member Glenn Sexton said. “The town has a bylaw in place, so in some roundabout way it does protect the town. However, I’m more concerned that, as you stated, someone being bitten, someone being attacked, whether it’s a person or someone else’s animal.”
Sexton said the leash law has come up several times as an issue over the years due to incidents similar to what happened to that happened to Remy. Select Board Chair Crystal Dufresne added that she’s had unleashed dogs attack her dog at the park.
“I’ve had incidents there of me leashing my dog and other people not leashing theirs and their dog attacks mine, and then I get yelled at. So I’ve been there and I understand your concern,” she said.
The board members and Martin apologized for the incident and offered to reimburse any out-of-pocket expenses on behalf of the town. Lindberg declined to take any payment, but agreed to help strengthen the leash law.
“I appreciate that, but that’s really not my end game. I just want people to be able to go into the park and feel like they can walk and run and ride their bike without being jumped by a dog,” he said.
Martin said he will send the former notes on the leash law from the Bylaw Review Committee to Animal Control and Lindberg for editing and comments.
Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.
