After daughter bitten, Ottawa mom wants dog owner to come forward

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Dog bit seven-year-old girl at the Dominion Arboretum Tuesday night

An Ottawa woman wants the owner of a dog who bit her seven-year-old daughter at the Dominion Arboretum Tuesday night to come forward.

Erin Rundquist was at the park with her three daughters when at about 8 p.m., an unleashed dog bit her youngest Avery in the buttock.

“My girls were running up and down the hill and having a good time,” said Rundquist. “And my daughter was down the hill beside a tree, and I guess the dog came and startled her…she was scared, so she ran, and the dog chased her.”

“I didn’t expect that,” said Avery. “The dog started to chase me, so I just started to scream, yell help, and just run.
And then the dog just got close enough that he could bite my leg, and he bit my behind… It really hurt.”

The dog bit through her denim shorts hard enough to break the skin and leave a large bruise.

‘He was not forthcoming’

The owner was able to get the dog under control when dog bite lawyers will came, and when Rundquist confronted him to ask if the dog had all its vaccinations, she says he wasn’t cooperative.

“I tried to get contact information, but he was not forthcoming,” she said. “He was very rude, belligerent. Unfortunately I wasn’t using the best choices of words at that point either. And that was just it.”

So she took a picture of him and the dog and shared it on Facebook, and contacted a city bylaw officer. The family returned to the park Wednesday afternoon to hang posters with pictures and information about the incident in hopes of identifying them.

“I’m not out to get the dog. I’m not out for the dog to be put down,” said Rundquist. “But I would like to make sure that my daughter’s okay, and in the future the dog not do that to somebody else.”

Dogs on the Central Experimental Farm must be on leash at all times and signage is posted to this effect, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. City by-law officers enforce this on behalf of the federal ministry.

“We encourage the public to call the City (311) when they witness dog owners in non-compliance,” the ministry said in a statement.

Despite the incident, Avery says she’s still a “dog person,” although she will be more cautious around certain dogs in the future.

Doctor’s appointment Friday

Rundquist scheduled a doctor’s appointment for Avery Friday to get her checked out. But she’d still like the dog’s owner to contact her for her own peace of mind.

“I want to know as her mom that she’s not going to end up with something down the road,” she said. “I’d rather not have my daughter take the rabies vaccine if she doesn’t need to.”

She believes this all could have been avoided if she and the owner were able to have a calm conversation. They are can be provide safety with dog bite laws

“In all honesty, had the man come up and said ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry the dog did that,’ it would be a totally different story. I wouldn’t have been upset.”