Posted on 01/15/2003 9:34:50 AM PST by Cagey
NORTHBOROUGH -- A dog owner who lied that his biting dog "Chewy," had been hit by a car and killed rather than turn it over to selectmen for death will spend a month in jail now that Chewy has bitten a third child.<!ENDSUMM!>
Jan Motyl-Szary, 47, who moved to Holden after his vicious yellow Labrador retriever, Chewy, was sentenced to death in Northborough, had sworn in a Northborough affidavit that Chewy was dead.
He even changed Chewy's name to Scooby-Doo.
Motyl-Szary said Chewy was hit by a truck on Interstate 93 near Salem, N.H.
"I am saddened but relieved that this matter is over," he wrote in a letter to the town.
Last week, Motyl-Szary admitted that he had lied and pleaded guilty to perjury. He will spend 30 days in the Worcester House of Corrections.
Motyl-Szary was found out in November 2001, when a yellow Lab named Scooby-Doo bit a child in the face in Holden.
"It was a little unusual," said Claudia McGuire, Northborough dog officer. McGuire said it is unusual for a Labrador retriever to have a vicious disposition.
After seeing newspaper reports of the Northborough incidents, the Holden animal officer called McGuire.
"(The dog) was the same breed and she was a little suspicious," McGuire said. "(Motyl-Szary) eventually admitted to her that it was actually the same dog."
Motyl-Szary could not be be reached for comment yesterday.
In a letter to the Westborough District Court he said, "When the town officials condemned my dog to death, I had to move out of my house, where I saw my kids grow up for many years. Alone in a shabby rental apartment, my dog seemed like the only friend and companion I had left.
"To me this is not some killer Rottweiler. `Chewy' was my playful, silly, loving yellow Lab.
"Following the suggestion of several other animal lovers who called me after reading about him in local newspapers, I just had to save him. I sent him to an intensive obedience school and had him castrated hoping he would change. It worked for a few months."
Motyl-Szary told the court he brought Chewy to a vet in Westborough to be put to death. The letter did not give a date for the dog's death.
Chewy came to the attention of Northborough in September 2000.
Chewy was tied up at a neighbor's house while Motyl-Szary was visiting when he lunged at a little girl who leaned down to pet him, biting her in the face. The girl received 50 stitches and required plastic surgery.
It turned out that about a year earlier, Chewy had bitten another girl, age 7, who leaned down to pet him at a riding stable where he was also tied up.
That girl also required stitches and plastic surgery. The first incident was attributed to Chewy, who was then about 2, being in an unfamiliar place on a hot day.
But after the second complaint, selectmen held a hearing in November 2000 "and determined based on evidence that (Chewy) did have a vicious disposition," Town Administrator Barry Brenner said.
After Chewy was sentenced to death, Motyl-Szary appealed to a Westborough District court magistrate who upheld the selectmen, Brenner said.
Motyl-Szary then appealed to a district court judge who also upheld the selectmen.
The case was set to go Worcester Superior Court in January 2001 when Motyl-Szary dismissed the appeal, Brenner said, and notified Northborough and the court that Chewy had been hit by a truck.
"We did question his story and that is why we prepared an affidavit that he signed under the pains and penalty of perjury," Brenner said.
McGuire said the injuries to the children Chewy bit were some of the worst dog bites she had seen in her 26 years as Northborough dog officer.
"It was unfortunate that another child was injured," in Holden, she said, when Chewy should have been put to death as sentenced.
McGuire suggested the state should authorize selectmen to keep death-row dogs in their possession until appeals are concluded.
"So we know where the dog is," she said. State Rep. Robert Spellane, a second-term Worcester Democrat, is filing legislation that would allow towns to have that authority, she said.
Ruh Roh! Coincidence? I think not.
Animals are unpredictable, but I'd bet there was more to those incidents than the little girls "bending down to pet the dog."
Guess he mistook the child for a "Scooby Snack."
Apparently he should have changed the dog's name to Scooby-Don't!
You know, it takes a LOT of work to make a yellow Lab vicious. This man sounds like a weirdo to me, as well as criminal.
People should teach their kids to never reach out to touch a strange dog. NEVER. And, never touch the dog on top of the head first... Do people teach their kids anything, these days?
If you want on or off this list, please let me know!
True. That's just not "normal" behavior for a Lab.
We have a black Lab (that we've had since he was 8 wks. old) who will let our toddler do just about anything. But we don't leave them in the same room alone and we make sure the little one doesn't get in the dog's face.
Still, this guy was wrong to try to pass this one off as a different dog.
... who loves to playfully eat kids' faces...
No wonder the dog was angry . . .
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