July 2013 Inside This Issue: Sunflower Cluster Meeting 2 June General Membership Mtg Minutes 3 Does every doggy have her day? 4 WICHITA KENNEL CLUB, INC. NEWS FOR THE DOG FANCIER A Word from the President Tom Chase Now that we no longer have a fall show to plan, it seems like there s not as much going on during the summer and fall months. But there are still quite a few dog-related activities, those operated by the Wichita Kennel Club as well as those done by other groups. I urge everyone to stay involved with the Club and, of course, with your dogs. For instance, we ll have the annual summer Sunflower Cluster meeting on July 21 st at Martinelli s restaurant in Salina. Come and have a great meal, see our friends from the other clubs, and put your two cents in on the spring show planning. We also are planning a fall microchip clinic to coincide with AKC s Responsible Dog Ownership Days in September. As always, we ll need as many volunteers as we can get to help at the event, and if you have dogs that need to be microchipped, that will be a good time to do it. From the Editor: All opinions expressed or implied in this publication are those only of the author(s) of that opinion. Have a safe 4 th of July week! The deadline for submission of articles in the newsletter is the 28th of every month. The newsletter is always available for download from the website: www.wichitakennelclub.org Your brags or news items can be sent to: Leanne Chase 12626 SW 160 th St. Rose Hill, KS 67133 316-650-8463 blackmagicbrt@aol.com July 2013 Membership Meeting Topic: To Be Announced Time: 7:30 PM When: Monday, July 8 Where: Wichita Kennel Club, 3448 North Emporia
NEWS FOR THE DOG FANCIER Page 2 of 6 Sunflower Cluster Meeting The annual summer Sunflower Cluster Meeting will again be at Martinelli's Little Italy in Salina (158 S. Santa Fe Ave.) from 1:00 to 3:00 PM on Sunday, July 21st. Please let Kim Jenning know if you plan to attend, so we can have a head count for the restaurant by July 14th. Also, please arrive a little early so we can get started right away. If there is anything you would like on the agenda please contact Kim Jenning at e-mail tandavakj@att.net or phone 316-733-9344. AKC SPOTLIGHTS AMERICAN BREEDS August General Meeting Monday August 12th 7:30 PM Podenco Canario Best of Breed #4701 Tayri 2013 World Show Budapest, Hungary Want to know more about American breeds? Please check out the latest news on AKC: http://images.akc.org/pdf/news/americanbreeds.pdf Here is the latest American breed to achieve full recognition by AKC: Rat Terrier: Joining the Terrier group on June 26, 2013, the Rat Terrier comes in two sizes standard and miniature. Originally used to hunt rodents and vermin, the breed was one of the most common farm dogs from 1910-1930 in the U.S. They are loyal and active and love being a member of a human family.
Page 3 of 6 NEWS FOR THE DOG FANCIER Wichita Kennel Club General Meeting Minutes June 10, 2013 President Tom Chase called the meeting to order at 7:07PM. Tom asked for a moment of silence in honor of Milli Dold. May general meeting minutes were accepted by the membership as published in the newsletter. Guests in attendance were: Jim Monroe- husband to club member Monica Monroe Corresponding Secretary: Mike Williams reported Thank You cards were received from both Pat Deshler and Patty Behrns in gratitude for flowers sent from the club after their knee surgeries. Mike reported a donation request from 4-H has been received and discussed by the board. Mike also explained the AKC Companion Animal Recovery program has asked the Wichita Kennel Club to present a check for a grant for the K-9 Search and Rescue of Kansas. Mike is coordinating with Laurie Vickery and is tentatively planning for having the presentation at their sponsorship event at Pawnee Prairie Park on Saturday June 15 th depending on press coverage. Art Show Committee: Pat Deshler reported packages have all been shipped back to artists. Sunflower Cluster Committee: Mike said to tentatively plan for a Cluster Club meeting on July 21 st. New Business: Becky Burt passed along a message from Treva Faires saying she misses everyone and wishes she could have been at the cookout. Mike expressed his pride in the Wichita Kennel Club paying off the mortgage on the organization s facility. Tom Street asked when the microchip clinic would be, and Tom Chase said it was planned for September during Responsible Dog Ownership Week. Leanne Chase recommended a membership building clean-up day. Pat Deshler asked the club to allow Mike to purchase fertilizer and weed preventative for the lawn. The membership unanimously voted in favor of Mike purchasing fertilizer and weed preventative for the lawn. Tom Chase announced the mortgage burning would take place outside immediately following the meeting. Meeting adjourned at 7:25 PM. Monica Monroe Recording Secretary
NEWS FOR THE DOG FANCIER Page 4 of 6 Canines: Does every doggy have her day? Or in the alternative, is Lucy s first bite free? 1 Author: Nola Tedesco Foulston, Hutton & Hutton Law Firm, Wichita, Kansas In the history of our Kansas cases, our canine friends have also made law as demonstrated in the case of Hopkins v. McCollam, decided by the Kansas Court of Appeals in May of 2013. Lucy the Rottweiler was owned by Mr. McCollam, and resided in Independence, Kansas. They lived next door to Mr. Hopkins who complained that on September of 2011, when he was in his own back yard, Rottweiler Lucy bit him. Ouch. Did Lucy have a propensity for vicious behavior or does every dog get the first bite free? Lucy s dad, Mr. McCollam claimed that Lucy was a gentle dog; Hopkins claims that she viciously attacked him. Hopkins also told the court that another resident in the neighborhood told him that Lucy had once chased him while he was jogging, however, the runner denied that he had ever been chased by Lucy or told anyone that he had. The court found that there was no evidence that the dog had bitten anyone before or done anything more vicious than briefly chasing a jogger running by. Still, Hopkins sued the neighbor for negligence in letting the dog roam the neighborhood. The lower court ruled that since there was no history of vicious behavior from the dog, it wasn't reasonably foreseeable that the dog would bite Hopkins and, thus, the neighbor wasn't negligent. Hopkins appealed claiming that the normal rules do not apply since the dog was trespassing on his property when Lucy bit him. In Kansas, strict liability does not apply to trespassing dogs and cats; instead, the principles of ordinary negligence shall apply. But a Kansas statute provides that the strict-liability principles Hopkins argues for don't apply to trespassing dogs and cats; instead, the principles of ordinary negligence shall apply. 1 Hopkins urged the court to accept a report that concluded that pit bulls and Rottweilers were involved in more than half of the human deaths caused in dog attacks over a 20-year period. Based on that report, Hopkins suggested that McCollam should have known that his dog had vicious tendencies because it was a Rottweiler. The court declined to take notice of the report stating that other dog breeds may be more likely to cause nonfatal injuries, that it wasn t clear that any dog breed was inherently vicious just because some dogs of that breed had been in involved in fatalities, and the report itself observed that several factors other than a dog s breed were important in determining whether a particular dog is aggressive. Accordingly, the data from the report cannot be used to infer any breed-specific risk for dogbite fatalities. The court found that McCollam had no reason to foresee that his dog would bite someone, so he was not negligent. Even if Lucy had chased a jogger that did not indicate that she was a vicious dog. [P]eople run, children run, dogs chase them. I see it every day. And that, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't establish the dog is vicious or aggressive. The court reasoned that We find that the report Hopkins has presented does not allow a court to accept as a universally known proposition that Rottweilers are a dangerous dog breed and are likely to bite people they encounter. So the facts before us show that Lucy bit Hopkins while in his own back yard and that Lucy had once chased a jogger. We also know that Lucy is a Rottweiler, but we have no evidence before us that Rottweilers are any more likely to bite people than other breeds of dogs. We must determine whether this is sufficient evidence to show that McCollam was negligent by letting Lucy roam. Continued on Page 5
Page 5 of 6 Continued from Page 4 NEWS FOR THE DOG FANCIER We turn next to the legal test we must apply to these facts. The traditional test is well stated in a Kansas pattern jury instruction: An owner who knows, or in the exercise of reasonable care should know, that an animal is vicious should confine it and see that it does no injury. The owner is bound to use that care necessary to prevent injury. The pattern instruction is an accurate statement of Kansas law. From the facts presented to the court, should McCollam have known that Lucy had vicious tendencies? The answer is no. The appellate court held that McCollam couldn't reasonably have foreseen from these facts that Lucy would have a tendency to bite people. And that's true even if McCollam had been aware that Lucy had once chased a jogger, something that wasn't directly shown in the evidence Hopkins submitted to the district court. The district court properly noted that there's no reason to believe that a dog that chases whether the dog is chasing a rabbit, a squirrel, or even a person is especially prone to be a dog that also bites people. In a 1961 Kansas case, the general rule was stated: that the owner of a domestic animal is not liable for injury done by it when it is in a place where it has a right to be, unless it is known by the owner to be vicious. In 1986, our legislature enacted a fence law 1 K.S.A. 29 108, which provides that there is no strict liability when a domestic animal, like a dog or cat, strays onto another's property and trespasses. Instead, the case must be decided under ordinary negligence principles. The facts in this case did not make it reasonably foreseeable that Lucy would bite anyone, whether in her own yard or a neighbor's. The evidence was insufficient to support a claim that McCollam was negligent, and the district court properly granted summary judgment in his favor. Lucy wins! 1 The "One-Bite" Rule for Dogs Under this rule, you're liable for injuries your dog causes only if you knew or had reason to know the dog was likely to cause that kind of injury. So if your dog tries to bite someone, from that moment on you're on notice that the dog is dangerous, and you will be liable if the dog later bites. The common law rule comes into play only if the state has no dog-bite statute or if the statute doesn't apply for example, if the statute covers only bites, and the dog caused the injury by knocking the person down. A dog owner may be able to escape liability by proving that the injured person provoked the injury, or voluntarily and knowingly risked being injured by the dog. 11 Statute 29-108: Declaration of policy relating to domestic animal trespass; liability for damages. It is hereby declared that the policy of this state with respect to domestic animal trespass shall be that all such animals shall be enclosed by a lawful fence. It is further declared that, unless otherwise specifically provided by law, strict or absolute liability for damages for injury to any person or property resulting from domestic animal trespass shall not arise, and, in all such cases, the principles of ordinary negligence shall apply. 111 Same as above OKC SUMMER CLASSIC BRAG From Leanne & Tom Chase: Leanne took the Picard boys to OKC for five regular AKC and three Open shows. Zed (Zephyr de la Vallee du Mouton) and Adam (Adam Eltanin) split winning best male and breed in six of the shows, with Adam taking the lead in points. Both boys started the long weekend with four points each. Zed won four more points, and Adam won six.
Wichita Kennel Club Officers and Board Tom Chase, President Kim Jenning, Vice President Bev Benjes, Treasurer Monica Monroe, Recording Secretary Mike Williams, Corres. Secretary Treva Faires, AKC Delegate Pat Deshler Patricia Holmes Diane Kilts Deborah Bartlett We re on the Web! See us at: www.wichitakennelclub.com Good for Your Dog Good for Your Breed. The benefits of feeding Purina brand dog foods go beyond great food and nutrition. Now, by simply clipping the weight circles on Purina bags you can support the valuable programs and research projects of the AKC Canine Health Foundation and the annual Art Show at the Dog Show. You can participate in this valuable program by collecting weight circles and sending them to: Wichita Kennel Club 3448 North Emporia Wichita, KS 67219 Your weight circles will support the AKC Canine Health Foundation and the Art Show at the Dog Show. That means funding for the health of Dogs and supporting the Sunflower Cluster's project, the annual Art Show at the Dog Show. Grand Basset Griffon Vendeen Best of Breed #9568 Fido-Dido van Tum-Tum s Vriendjes 2013 World Show Budapest, Hungary Leanne Chase, Editor 12626 SW 160 th St. Rose Hill, KS 67133