LIHU‘E — Sampson, the Rottweiler that seriously injured a boy last week, was euthanized Monday afternoon, according to Kaua‘i Humane Society. The dog’s owner, Eddie Tydingco, stopped by The Garden Island immediately after his beloved pet was destroyed. He had
LIHU‘E — Sampson, the Rottweiler that seriously injured a boy last week, was euthanized Monday afternoon, according to Kaua‘i Humane Society.
The dog’s owner, Eddie Tydingco, stopped by The Garden Island immediately after his beloved pet was destroyed. He had the option to keep the dog, he said, but if something ever happened again he said he would not be able to live with it.
“It’s terrible what happened and I know that,” Tydingco said. “He wasn’t a bad dog, and this makes him into a bad dog. I had him since he was nine-weeks old and my three-year-old daughter played with him every day and it makes no sense what happened. He was a good dog.”
Sampson got out of his fenced yard in the Wailua Homesteads and reportedly pulled 8-year-old Jeremiah Dela Cruz from his bike and bit him repeatedly. The boy suffered lacerations to the left arm and leg, and a punctured elbow. He was released from Wilcox Memorial Hospital Monday afternoon.
“If that was my son I would want the dog dead too, and I did the right thing on their part,” Tydingco said. “That is why we went to the Humane Society today and did it.”
Tydingco said his life has become a living hell since the incident, and that he and his family are getting threats on the phone and on Facebook. It is frightening and he is concerned for the safety of his daughter and a two-week-old infant son, he said.
Tydingco said he was napping Thursday after completing a morning shift. His spouse woke him to say that Sampson had gotten loose, and then began screaming that the dog was biting Jeremiah.
Tydingco recalls bringing his dog back in the yard and telling Dela Cruz that he locked up the dog. He said he did not knock out the dog as the boy stated.
It pains him that this incident has divided a family with a lot of associations. It makes life uncomfortable, he said.
Jeremiah’s grandfather, Roger Walraven said his daughter Laura and the neighbors did communicate to one another today.
“There is some peace there,” Walraven said. “The owner of the dog finally did the right thing.”
Walraven said he and Tydingco had one thing in common and that was not knowing the law on how to handle the situation as it transpired. Being sent back and forth between police and the Humane Society was confusing, he said, as was the protocol concerning the status of the dog after the incident.
“That hopefully will change and we hope that people are empowered to use the law so that we do have real animal control as a goal for the Island of Kaua‘i,” he said.
Walraven said hin the absence of a death certificate for Sampson, he was allowed to view the dog after it was put down.
“I am relieved now,” Walraven said.
This was Tydingco’s first encounter with police or the Humane Society concerning a dog. He said he expected Sampson to be taken away but that wasn’t the case.
Instead, the enforcement officers issued a citation for him to appear in court for a June hearing, when a judge would decide the fate of the dog. Meantime, his landlord told him to get the dog off the property, he added.
The Kaua‘i Humane Society planned to conduct an assessment of Sampson but it was not possible over the weekend. Instead, he said the dog was brought to a North Shore kennel until Monday.
The KHS assessment was not a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Tydingco said he had the option of keeping Sampson, but the risk was too great, he said.
“I would have loved to keep the dog if I could, but I can’t,” he said.
Mana Brown, a KHS animal control officer, said Tydingco wanted to know his options after the assessment. He said that to keep the dog it should remain at KHS until the court hearing.
“The more he talked with Ellen (Carscadden) the behaviorist, the more he understood what he was getting into,” Brown said. “I am happy that he decided to surrender the dog; it was the right thing for him to do.”
Carscadden runs Akamai Pet Service. She conducts evaluations and testings in addition to the KHS dog classes at the shelter. She is not at liberty to discuss the Sampson evaluation or consultation, but said that in general its best for dog owners to go through training in groups where their dogs can adjust to the stress they feel around other dogs and people in a different environment.
She said different dogs are disturbed by different things, from a screaming child to the UPS man, or skateboards and bikes. Dogs need to be aware of the common occurrences in everyday life and when they are not a threat.
“A lot of people want a dog to become protective inside the property,” Carscadden said. “But protecting should shouldn’t escalate beyond the barking.”
Tydingco said he has had Rotweillers since he was a boy and appreciates them as guard dogs but does not raise them to fight or to be vicious.
Sampson may have disliked bicycles or skateboards, or he may have been taunted as his neighbor with the male and female pitbulls told him the neighborhood kids do to his dogs, he said.
Sampson will ignore the other dogs but he has a thing about chickens, he said, and goes after them.
“He protected our family and was a good watch dog, but has never done anything this vicious,” Tydingco said.
The report of another incident two weeks ago involving another youth was essentially a barking incident, he said. If Sampson was doing more than barking then he would have been concerned, Tydingco added.
