Neighbors in court over dog attack

By ALEX COSTELLO

When Ryan and Alyson Clark’s dog Kenny was attacked by a neighbor’s dog in December 2007, they were shocked, but relieved when their dog Kenny came away with only a few scratches. But when the same dog attacked Kenny again in April of this year, and actually injured him, they knew they had to do something.

Ryan Clark was walking his greyhound in April when he saw some kids walking Rusty, a St. Bernard mix. When Rusty saw Kenny, he broke away from the kids and lunged at the greyhound, biting his front left leg.

“At that point, I kicked him away,” Ryan Clark recalled. “I gave [Rusty] a good shot to the ribs and he went flying. He came back at Kenny a second time and I was able to kick him in the face. And he started to come back a third time, but the kids who were walking him finally got over and took control.”

Clark picked up his dog and brought him back home. He went outside to make sure the kids had returned Rusty to his home. Then when he got back, Clark noticed how seriously Kenny was hurt.

“When I got home, that’s when I saw the sizable chunk ripped off my dog’s leg,” he said.

He called Alyson to let her know what had happened, and then drove Kenny straight to the vet's office. Kenny wound up with 15 stitches in his leg, and the Clarks had a bill for almost $1,500, which the Tobiases paid.

Because of those two incidents, and a third in which Rusty allegedly attacked the dog of an Oceanside man in 2008 (that dog was fine and had only a few scratches), the Clarks took Rusty's owners, neighbors Peter and Barbara Tobias, to Village Court. The Clarks wanted Rusty muzzled whenever he was out in public so that he wouldn’t be able to attack anyone or anything else. But the Tobiases, according to Alyson Clark, said their dog was only playing and didn’t do anything wrong. (Despite repeated calls to the Tobias home, they could not be reached for comment for this story.)

On Aug. 24, the Tobiases and the Clarks were supposed to go to court over the muzzling. However, things never went that far. Peter Tobias settled and agreed to muzzle his dog, to chain him when in the backyard and to install an electric fence around his home to keep Rusty in—an outcome the Clarks are happy with.