Dog owners are supposed to control their canine pets. Still, the same owners do have some potential actions, which could help them to limit the size of any compensation that might be due to an injured victim. What are those actions?
Seek medical help for the victim
A pet owner’s concern for the victim would be noted by any authority that had to decide on how to compensate the target of the dog’s teeth.
True, pet owners are not physicians. Still any one of them could arrange for the victim to get medical advice as soon as possible.
Provide victim with necessary information
Injury Lawyers in Ottawa know that all injured victims deserve to know the name and contact information for the allegedly responsible party. In a case involving a biting incident, that responsible party would be the dog’s owner. The same party should provide the victim with updated information on the pet’s vaccinations.
That same responsible party ought to contact his/her insurance company, following a dog bite incident. That company should know whether or not the caller’s policy included coverage for victims of a biting attack.
Owners’ responsibilities, before and after court’s issuance of a decision on victim’s compensation:
Prepare to cooperate with the mandated quarantine of your pet
—The quarantine period is usually 10 days
—The owner must pay the costs for the quarantining of the animal that has carried out the biting attack.
—Some states allow pets to be quarantined at home; others require transfer to a shelter.
Understand that authorities could have the responsible dog labeled as a dangerous animal. If that were to be their decision, then the owner would need to cooperate with the demand for added control measures. Any owners that refused to go along with the new restrictions, the stronger control measures, could be charged with violating the law.
Owners’ rights
Those rights include protection from any attempt by the victim to inflict unnecessary harm on the attacker/pet canine.
In other words, someone that has become the target of an angry dog does not have the right to pepper spray the same animal, or to pepper spray someone that had been caring for that same angry dog.
Owners have the right to explain to the court what sort of control measures had been in place, before occurrence of the biting incident. When courts have deemed such measures to be sufficient, the dog’s owner might be able to win the case.
That could end the chances for the placement of added restrictions on the pet canine. It would certain end the victim’s claim for compensation. The proof of adequate control measures would remove the victim’s hope for producing proof of negligence, on the part of the dog-lover.
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