Dog attacked neighbours cat

9tails said:
Why were the dogs allowed even a few seconds to launch an attack? You mention that the lady thought it was a hedgehog, is it reasonable for dogs to attack a hedgehog?
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No, but they wouldnt have attacked a hedgedog.. just been interested in it.
 
Dry Rot said:
Quoting a post out of context is also a bit harsh. I merely mirrored Amymay's usual curt response in the manner of the standard pantomine reply!:) "Oh no it isn't!". Got it now?

If someone can quote the legislation on this point, I'd be very interested to see it. I was not aware that cats could be controlled in the same way a dog can be controlled. The law considers them differently for that reason. Not wild, but not controlled either. I know an owner is not liable if his dog attacks a stray sheep on his own property as he has no duty of care towards the sheep. On the other hand, he may not set his dog on the sheep. I doubt whether cats have more rights than sheep, but I am ready to be proved wrong -- given the proper legal reference, of course, and not just guesswork.
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“Protected animal”

An animal is a “protected animal” for the purposes of this Act if—
(a)it is of a kind which is commonly domesticated in the British Islands,

(b)it is under the control of man whether on a permanent or temporary basis, or

(c)it is not living in a wild state.

So going by that legislation, cats, including the one in this case, would be protected I believe?

It's not about controlling the cat. It was, in any case, on its own property. It is about the fact that cats fall under the above legislation and are therefore protected. To that end, the owner of anything that attacks them is liable.
 
I would pay the bill. Mainly because the laws are now supposedly stricter in regards to "complaints" made against your dog/'s now resulting in them being potentially carted away for temperament tests and being slapped with asbos lol meaning the owner now has to kee the dogs under the radar for fear of any other complaints. However I do agree its foolish to own a cat and allow it out without adequate insurance. You let a cat out (yes I have a cat) you take huge risks with its welfare. They are lucky it was not a deliberate attack by kids with lurchers as they would just laugh and hot foot it but the ladies honesty has landed her a big vet bill.
If her dogs where on a lead she is obs is not irresponsible it was dark. If the neighbours get awkward I would be too and ask if the cat is chipped and they can prove it's theirs. Otherwise pay the bill even though they could claim forever more!
 
Well if they want to be awkward they could come knocking in a month because they cat is lame and needs pain meds and vets recons it's related to the attack ( if you get my drift)
 
Does the friend own their house, do the neighbours own their house?

I do think if you have to live next door to someone and intend to for many years to come then that makes a difference too.

and if I had dogs that would go for a cat I would make sure I had a headtorch on in the dark.
 
CAYLA said:
Well if they want to be awkward they could come knocking in a month because they cat is lame and needs pain meds and vets recons it's related to the attack ( if you get my drift)
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There are, unfortunately some people out there that would do this. Sad, but true.

Might be an interesting addition to the thread, although was before the recent changes in law.

When my collie was 2 years old, we had a non-incident with him. I was out the back of my house, de-icing the car and a lady with a pushchair and a young girl walking beside her crossed the end of our street, about 15 yards away from me and my garden gate. My collie, Stig, had come out to see me...jumping an 8ft fence to do so, but he just crept up to me and sat by my foot. The girl ran at us screaming with excitement, Stig isn't great with kids, so I grabbed him (he was actually wagging his tail mind you) and I shouted at the girl to stop, then told her he doesn't like strangers and not to come any closer. Her mum didn't move but watched it all. I took Stig inside, the girl got no closer than about 8ft from him with me between them. When I came back out, the mother (if you could call her that) had left her young son in his pushchair on the side of a very busy main road and was walking over to my car with a pen and notebook. She got to her daughter and told her to stop crying. That was it. I'm sure the child was crying because I had shouted at her to stop, but that's all the mother said to her. She asked for my name and address, told me she was going to call the police to report a dog attack on her daughter and that, I quote, "her dad, I'm not with him anymore, I'm with my sons dad now, but her dad is going to pay you a ******* visit later", so rather threatening to say the least. I gave her my information and told her to do whatever she wanted to as my dog hadn't been anywhere near her child so I had nothing to worry about. She went on to lecture me on keeping children safe and how dangerous dogs are blah blah blah. I stood and listened for about 2 minutes and finally got fed up and said that if she was such a model parent, perhaps she should return to the toddler she had left and turned her back on, right next to a very busy, fast road. She was furious but left.

I went in, called the dog warden and local police station to ask for advice. Had a few calls of the mother through the morning to say that she had reported me and that I'd be getting a knock on the door soon. Each time, I called the police again, they hadn't had any calls. The dog warden had been called but she couldn't find any marks of any kind on the little girl, so she wouldn't do anything. Then the police woman called me back and said that they would send someone out as the mother had a GP certificate to say that the girl had a puncture wound on her leg. I had the police woman call the dog warden and the last I heard from the police was that they were visiting the mother on concern of a/wasting police time, b/ deception and c/in relation to possible inflicted harm on the child in order to deceive or close to those words.

The dog warden came to visit me to put my mind at rest...even walked Stig and Hollie with me and commented on how extremely well trained they were. All sorted you'd think. Nope! Early that evening, 10 minutes after I had cried the stress out all over Dan when he got home to work and there was a knock at the door. There was a big burly man at the door, collecting a statement for his client...a no win no fee compensation solicitor! I wasn't very kind in telling him to do one before I call the police.

Some people are awful. Some situations are totally innocent. I look back at this though and I am so so careful with the dogs and other people now. If the laws then were as they are now, just the fact that the mum could have said she felt threatened would have been enough to label my dog as dangerous.

It's a scary world and I think the vast majority of the time, doing the right moral thing will help prevent anything escalating, but it's always worth keeping in the back of your mind that for some people, that's never enough.
 
_GG_ said:
OP - I'm with Ester on this.

There's no legal action that the neighbours can take if the vet bill is paid in full by your friend. This is something I do think she should do...not just morally, but legally. It's irrelevant that she could pull the dogs off quickly, being on a lead doesn't automatically mean there is control. In this case, for that moment, they weren't and if your neighbour wants to argue that, it is worth imagining the cat was a child. Control wouldn't come into it...it's about the fact that the cat was on it's own property and your friends dogs were able to go onto that property and attack it. A lead clearly made no difference to that fact, it just meant that your friend was able to act quickly to limit damage.
I don't think your friend needs to speak to a solicitor...but it might put her mind at rest if she does.

On your final point, I disagree. This isn't 50/50. Your friends dogs attacked a cat that was on it's own property, end of. No other scenario's are relevant.
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Sums up exactly what I wanted to say
 
If someone one here came on and said their horse had a puncture wound from being by a dog allowed to come too close- I think the unanimous answer would be claim vets fees off the dog. same differnece.
 
If you are in charge of dogs and they attack ANY other thing: animal or human, then YOU and you only are responsible and should take that responsibility seriously, and recompense where necessary and also make sure the incident is never repeated.

It sounds like these two dogs in question were allowed to be out of control and need a bit of remedial training TBH, yes appreciate dogs WILL chase a cat when it pops up from nowhere but they need to respect the fact of being on a lead/close-control.

I think OP your friend should just pay up and look sweet. Did I hear it right that the owner of the cat is an "elderly neighbour"?? If so, then the poor old duck is probably pretty shook up about the whole thing and is desperately worried that her beloved Puss has had an awful experience and might not make it. If the friend's dogs are responsible, then friend should foot the full costs of any vets bills plus some (and make sure she keeps the dogs under control in future).
 
_GG_ said:
“Protected animal”

An animal is a “protected animal” for the purposes of this Act if—
(a)it is of a kind which is commonly domesticated in the British Islands,

(b)it is under the control of man whether on a permanent or temporary basis, or

(c)it is not living in a wild state.

So going by that legislation, cats, including the one in this case, would be protected I believe?

…….. .
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Not really going to get in to this, but I believe that your point fails, at (b). Cats are considered to be feral (even if they aren't!), if we hit a cat with our car there is no need to report the matter to the Police. If we hit a dog with our car, then we're obliged to do so. (Feral to mean not expected to be under the full time control of their owner, as dogs are). In short, when given their freedom, cats are not under the control of their owner, nor considered so. If a cat which was identifiable caused say a fatal road accident, then the owner wouldn't be liable, but were it an identifiable dog, then the owners would be liable.

The case in question has the dog owner fail if the cat was on the property of its owner. Were the cat on the property of the dog's owner, then that's a different matter, and they wouldn't be considered liable. By now it would be a bit late to argue the point that the cat 'may' have been previously injured.

jmn04, your friend's honest and decent approach to the problem should be limited to the (remarkable) figure of £600 for the vet's bill. I would resist however, any further demands for payment, as it would sound to me, suspiciously as though the situation was being 'milked'.

Alec.
 
Owner of dogs should pay vets bill 100%. I'd be mortified if my dog attacked my neighbours cat. If I even thought there was any chance of it attacking any animal I would keep a muzzle on the dog unless I had 100% recall. I can't understand why there would be any question about who pays. Cat was on its own property and dog entered that property and attacked. The fact that it's an elderly neighbour would remove any remaining doubts about who pays.

Why should an elderly woman, who might only be on a small pension pay hundreds for vets bill because an owner can't control their dog??? I'd be absolutely mortfifed if it was me, and i'd happily pay any bills to remedy the situation.
 
Does it matter if it was a cat? what if it had been a child holding a rabbit or guinea pig? Owner shouldn't have allowed dogs off lead if they couldn't recall them properly.
 
I'm absolutely shocked at the OP and dog owner's attitude. If my dog attacked someone else's cat to the extent that has been described here I would be mortified. I can't even quite understand how someone can have so little control of dogs on leads that it could even happen, is she very old and not really capable of controlling her dogs or seeing/hearing what is happening? Should she actually be in charge of dogs? It seems like you're quibbling about the dislocation and extent of damage and more worried about what may happen to the ladies dogs than stepping up and doing the right thing. I'm rather disgusted. Pay the blimmin bill for the damage the dogs have done.
 
paddi22 said:
Does it matter if it was a cat? what if it had been a child holding a rabbit or guinea pig? Owner shouldn't have allowed dogs off lead if they couldn't recall them properly.
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They didn't have the dog off the lead, the cat was in a very shallow (5ft) unfenced garden and the dog lunged, then was immediately pulled off. It reads that the lapse was momentary...
 
Honey08 said:
I'm absolutely shocked at the OP and dog owner's attitude. If my dog attacked someone else's cat to the extent that has been described here I would be mortified. I can't even quite understand how someone can have so little control of dogs on leads that it could even happen, is she very old and not really capable of controlling her dogs or seeing/hearing what is happening? Should she actually be in charge of dogs? It seems like you're quibbling about the dislocation and extent of damage and more worried about what may happen to the ladies dogs than stepping up and doing the right thing. I'm rather disgusted. Pay the blimmin bill for the damage the dogs have done.
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Agreed.

Cats are domesticated animals with ' freedom to roam' and as such, are protected by the laws previously quoted. I have to admit, I'm not a fan of cats these days but I'm even less of a fan of people who can't control their dogs. I had a dog once, who had been previously trained to hunt and kill cats like vermin. Within a week of retraining, he could be trusted to live with them. I understand that prey drive can be very difficult to overcome but it doesn't sound like this cat ran off in a way which might trigger that response. It was pounced upon. Awful and inexcusable. It's a handlers responsibility to be switched on 100% of the time when in public. I have Shar Peis and this is certainly the case with them. Preempting prevents any potential problems.
 
Orca said:
Agreed.

Cats are domesticated animals with ' freedom to roam' and as such, are protected by the laws previously quoted. I have to admit, I'm not a fan of cats these days but I'm even less of a fan of people who can't control their dogs. I had a dog once, who had been previously trained to hunt and kill cats like vermin. Within a week of retraining, he could be trusted to live with them. I understand that prey drive can be very difficult to overcome but it doesn't sound like this cat ran off in a way which might trigger that response. It was pounced upon. Awful and inexcusable. It's a handlers responsibility to be switched on 100% of the time when in public. I have Shar Peis and this is certainly the case with them. Preempting prevents any potential problems.
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Cats are considered feral once off the owners property. To be honest they have no protection under law once this has occurred and any fate may fall upon them without consequence.

However I think the dog owner should pay! I say that with one caveat. Do not pay until you get a full vet report regarding injuries and likely cause . You have to entertain the possibility that the second vets visit may be due to say a secondary incident that has caused a problem with the healing process should the dog owner still have to stump up if thats the case. You also have to entertain the possibility that the treatment is in excess of what may be strictly necessary to put the cat back to its same condition it was in before the attack

Hate to say it but I think its a situation where your friend would have been better off keeping her mouth shut.
Im a little disturbed by her neighbours veiled threat about further action and maybe a trip to see a solicitor is in order. Has your friend considered claiming on her house insurance as any third party liability cover should cover this and maybe an insurance company getting involved may temper the demands somewhat. In hindsight they would be my first port of call tomorrow morning!!
 
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incorrect- you cannot for example hit a cat or be cruel to it because it is free roaming- it still counts as animal cruelty.
 
For the fifth time, the cat was on the owner's property.

Dog owner should pay the £600, but I'd want a call from the vet re the other £600, just to check. The bill could well rise hugely if the cat needs pins in the leg.

If an owner chooses not to insure, fine, but if a dog attacked mine, I would ask for details but if I got nothing, I'd use my insurance. Bit silly not to insure, IMO, personal choice, I know, but it's not ideal. You never know what's going to happen.

HGA-12 said:
A dog owner needs to be vigilant at all times - this could just as easily been a child.
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Why do people always say that? Do you think the dogs would have attacked a child?
 
Alec Swan said:
Not really going to get in to this, but I believe that your point fails, at (b). Cats are considered to be feral (even if they aren't!), if we hit a cat with our car there is no need to report the matter to the Police. If we hit a dog with our car, then we're obliged to do so. (Feral to mean not expected to be under the full time control of their owner, as dogs are). In short, when given their freedom, cats are not under the control of their owner, nor considered so. If a cat which was identifiable caused say a fatal road accident, then the owner wouldn't be liable, but were it an identifiable dog, then the owners would be liable.

The case in question has the dog owner fail if the cat was on the property of its owner. Were the cat on the property of the dog's owner, then that's a different matter, and they wouldn't be considered liable. By now it would be a bit late to argue the point that the cat 'may' have been previously injured.

jmn04, your friend's honest and decent approach to the problem should be limited to the (remarkable) figure of £600 for the vet's bill. I would resist however, any further demands for payment, as it would sound to me, suspiciously as though the situation was being 'milked'.

Alec.
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It's not my point Alec, it's the legislation of England and Wales. According to UK law regarding cats, they are defined as companion animals (pets) if they are linked to or living at a single property and have an identifiable owner. In fact, even feral cats under the law can be considered companion animals where a person will accept responsibility for them. Perception or personal beliefs aren't relevant.

That goes for the comparison with a car hitting a cat as well. That's a cat roaming, not a cat sat in it's owners property doing nothing wrong. In that instance, the cat is protected by UK law.

It's just details, but details matter...there's little point going into other scenarios when they won't give any clarity to the situation.
 
Alec Swan said:
……..

The case in question has the dog owner fail if the cat was on the property of its owner. ……..

Alec.
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_GG_ said:
…….. . That's a cat roaming, not a cat sat in it's owners property doing nothing wrong. In that instance, the cat is protected by UK law.

…….. .
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Presumably you read the line above. The dog owner is therefore responsible. Period! :)

Alec.
 
Due to my cynical and sceptical nature, I am guessing the OP is a law student who has been set this conundrum by her tutor! :D

That apart, I love the way these threads take on a life of their own because posters forget to read the original post and lose all track of the facts as stated!

Both dogs were on the lead.
They have no history of being 'vicious'.
They were called off almost as soon as the attack started.
It was dark.
The cat is presumed to have been on it's owner's property but we don't know this.
The pursuit may have been from the dogs owner's property onto the cat's owner's property. Hot pursuit? Cat trespassing? Cat 'not under owner's control'?
But the boundary is only delineated by a line on the ground -- no fence or wall.
There is no proof or evidence as to how the injuries were caused as the cat is only recovered later some time after the attack.
The owners of both dogs offered to pay the initial vet's fees, so liability to admitted. But are they both in the same position legally if one is the landowner and the other isn't?
But what about subsequent fees?

The original post reads like something concocted to test the knowledge of a law student, to me! I am highly suspcious! :) A good troll, if it is one!
 
SusieT said:
incorrect- you cannot for example hit a cat or be cruel to it because it is free roaming- it still counts as animal cruelty.
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This is taking it to the extreme and only to show a point once a cat leaves its owners property ,the cat is classed as feral if I wished too(which I dont) I could legally shoot it with no consequence.
I will duck behind the wall now.
 
jmn04 said:
My friend, out of good faith and feeling somewhat responsible, immediately offered to pay them for the initial vet bill of £600, which they have accepted.
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Your friend has already accepted responsibility for the cats injuries. Trying to establish whether there is genuine legal liability at this stage is shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

I would suggest that your friend pay for 100% of the vets bills to avoid any further questions being asked about the aggression shown by their dogs. In the current climate, I would be very careful to avoid my dogs being interpreted as uncontrollable or aggressive.

I would also fence the boundary and train the dogs. "Dogs chase cats" is not acceptable, as others have said, dogs chase cats if you let them. The whole concept of a trained dog is that we ask them to control their instincts.

I hope the cat is ok, and that the dog owner isn't in for too much. It sounds like a nasty accident and it must have been horrible for your friend too.

Also, just to note that some posters have confused "liable" with "libel". They are two completely separate legal concepts, the latter having nothing to do with "liability".
 
There was no 'pursuit' Dryrot?

One point that has been missed is whether the dogs were on flexi or long leads ;). If not it really had to be impressively dark (considering so near at least 2 houses) or they really don't eat enough carrots. I don't think it being dark is a defence, if it is too dark you take a light :p.
 
Poor cat. Of course the dog owner should pay for the Vet however ongoing the recovery. I would be mortified if this was my dogs. How long were their leads if they could inflict such bad injuries in a split second?, what type of dogs are they for goodness sake?
 
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