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Pets put down after Beckett Ridge attacks

Owner of supposed Presa Canarios charged with failure to confine “vicious” animals.

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By Dave Greber, Staff Writer Updated 6:44 PM Wednesday, March 10, 2010

WEST CHESTER TWP. — Indy never really had a chance. Neither did Pepper.

Both dogs were fatally maimed by two dogs described by their owner as Presa Canarios — a powerful breed considered a “holding dog” originally from the Canary Islands — while in their respective Beckett Ridge backyards last week.

In addition to Indy and Pepper, the dogs also bit a man and his 16-year-old daughter outside their home at approximately 6:40 a.m. Saturday, March 6. The two sustained minor injuries, although both required treatment from an area hospital, police said.

The dogs, however, were not as lucky.

Just as she does each day, Barbara Pryce leashed Indy, a 10-year-old collie-chow mix, for an evening bathroom break. About 20 minutes later, West Chester Twp. police were knocking on her door.

“They asked if we had a dog,” said Greg Flege, Indy’s co-owner. “And then they asked us to come to the backyard with them.”

Flege said Pryce found the pooch lying in the grass not moving, the chain still around his neck but ripped away from the post to which it was once attached.

“It was horrific,” Flege said. “He was just torn up.”

Although Indy was alive, he had sustained gaping wounds to his neck, back, face and tongue. The skin had been ripped from a rear leg and holes peppered his stomach from where the dogs had latched their powerful jowls. Veterinarians said Indy would likely not recover, and so he was euthanized, Flege said.

John DeHart, also of Beckett Station, believes Pepper, his 3-year-old, 17 lb., mixed-breed, was attacked during the evening hours of March 3 while still inside the family’s Invisible Fence, then dragged about 50 feet away where he was found in a drainage ditch with injuries similar to Indy’s.

The dogs in question were believed to be 60 lbs. and 80 lbs., officials said.

“My wife and I are very upset at the loss of our dog,” DeHart wrote in an e-mail. “However, we are very grateful that it was not any worse for the individuals that were attacked and that the dogs will no longer be a menace to the area.”

The Butler County Dog Warden’s office was called March 6, shortly after the dogs attacked the man and his daughter. The dogs were impounded for a brief time before being given back to the owner, Joel M. Lovins, of 6090 Bardeen Drive. Lovins eventually returned the dogs to the shelter where they were euthanized March 8.

County Chief Dog Warden Julie Holmes said the dogs were considered a mixed breed more akin to a pit bull and boxer rather than a Presa Canario. Court records show the same. She said it wouldn’t be rare for them to attack in tandem.

Lovins told police his dogs somehow escaped his fenced-in backyard and wandered into the Beckett Ridge subdivision.

Lovins was charged with two counts each of failure to confine a vicious or dangerous dog and failure to obtain liability insurance for a vicious or dangerous dog. The charges are misdemeanors, and Lovins is due March 23 in Butler County Area III Court.

Even if the dogs had been pure Presa Canario, Holmes said Lovins would have faced the same charges because of the dog’s resemblance in appearance to bull terriers, which follows state law.

Still, no amount of insurance or criminal charges will bring Indy back, Flege said.

“We don’t have kids. He was like our kid — spoiled rotten,” Flege said. “He was pretty, a beautiful dog. It really is like losing your kid. It’s been hard.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2112 or dgreber@coxohio.com.

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