Owner, councilman say due process overlooked after neighbors cite ‘dog attacks’ 

Correction: The spelling of Shad Janke’s last name has been corrected. FAO regrets the error.  

By Kim McDarison

A dog living in one of Fort Atkinson’s north side neighborhoods has been accused of vicious behavior after biting two individuals who came in contact with it.

Appearing before council during a regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, April 4 — moved from Tuesday to accommodate the spring general election — two residents living in the neighborhood came forward during the public comments portion of the meeting to advocate for remedies, including euthanizing the dog.

Also during public comments, the dog’s owner, Robin Lehmann, and her neighbor and friend, Shad Janke, came forward to advocate for other solutions which, if employed, they said, would keep the community safe while allowing the dog to live with its family and undergo training.

Six days after the meeting, the dog’s owner was contacted by the Fort Atkinson Police Department, informing her that the city would be revoking her license to have the dog, and that she had 10 days to find the dog a new place to live outside of the city, and provide proof that the dog was licensed at its new address.

In its letter, the police department, referencing the city’s ordinance, offered a second option, which stipulated that if the first option could not be met, the owner could turn the dog over within the 10-day period to the humane society.

Answering questions posed by Fort Atkinson Online by phone, Councilman Bruce Johnson said that he thought the decision made by the city to offer its two options within a 10-day period was enacted without offering the owner due process.

Further, he said, the city’s ordinance offers dog owners an opportunity to remedy such situations, which, he said, he believed the owner of the dog had offered.

During the public comments portion of the April 4 meeting, Johnson said, council members could not ask questions.

Describing himself as “a dog lover,” he said that while he understood the concepts surrounding safety, he continues to believe a “more friendly” solution can be found to remedy the situation.

Who is ‘Frisbee’

According to Lehmann, “Frisbee” is a 3-year-old boxer mix who was adopted in February from a rescue facility by her family, which includes three children, ages 6, 9 and 11, and a 5-year-old boxer named “Daisy.” 

The family has lived at its north side address in Fort Atkinson for seven years. Due to some familial changes, Lehmann said in a recent phone interview with Fort Atkinson Online, Daisy’s canine companion, a black lab, no longer resides with the family and she observed that Daisy missed her playmate.

Frisbee has integrated into the household nicely, Lehmann said, adding that he gets along well with Daisy and snuggles with her children. The children, too, Lehmann said are attached to the dog, who has aided in helping her youngest son overcome some issues with sleeping, she said.

Lehmann said the family was unaware of Frisbee’s protective nature, seeing it for the first time when a neighbor reached to pet the dog. Frisbee reacted by biting the neighbor’s fingers.

Two biting incidents

Following the incident, which occurred in February, Lehmann said she asked the Fort Atkinson Police Department for a copy of the incident report, which, she said, she has not yet received. The police were called by hospital staff after the neighbor arrived seeking medical attention.

Responding to an inquiry from Johnson, Lehmann said she and Janke wrote an account of the incident, which they shared with Fort Atkinson Online.

According to the account from Lehmann and Janke, their neighbor exited his vehicle and approached Lehmann while she was walking the dog on a leash. The neighbor “then reached down to pet Frisbee and (the) dog bit his hand, causing (a) few puncture wounds.”

Documents shared by Lehmann show that she was fined $124 by the city for the violation of its ordinance 10-6, further denoted the offense as “animal control violations.”

Lehmann was cited a second time, and fined $187 by the city followed an animal control violation occurring on March 31. A municipal court date has been set, according to the citation, for May 6. Lehmann said she has already paid the fine.

According to the account of the incident written by Lehmann and Janke, Lehmann was experiencing pain associated with a medical treatment. She allowed her children to take Frisbee for a walk. “This turned out to be a mistake,” Lehmann and Janke wrote, noting that while they walked, the dog pulled on the leash, “pulling the child to the ground.” Frisbee next ran down the street where he encountered a neighbor walking two dogs.

“An altercation ensued,” the account read, and the neighbor tried to intervene on her dogs’ behalf. She was bitten in the process, according to the account. As the scene unfolded, another neighbor arrived and “grabbed Frisbee’s leash,” and waited for Lehmann to arrive. The owner of the other dogs received, according to the account, “a minor injury to her arm.”

Lehmann said she remains unsure if the neighbor sought medical attention for her arm. She said she has not yet seen a requested incident report from the police department.

‘Official warning of chronic nuisance property’

According to documents supplied by Lehmann, on April 2 she received a letter from Fort Atkinson Police Chief Adrian Bump, citing her property as a chronic nuisance.

Within his letter, Bump defined a nuisance property as one which generates three or more documented complaints or circumstances requiring police service for nuisance activities on separate days during one month, or six or more calls during a period of 12 months.

The police chief next noted that over the past two months, the department had responded to two nuisance activity calls stemming from Lehmann’s address. He wrote: “Both situations resulted in your dog attacking or biting a person. These dog bites were serious and required medical attention for these citizens.”

Additionally the letter stated: “I have included City Ordinance Chapter 10 Animals that outlines the next aggressive steps that will occur if you do not take immediate action to eliminate this chronic nuisance and safety concern.”

The letter stated that Lehmann had 10 days to “provide me with a written plan to abate these nuisance activities.”

Public comments

During the April 4 meeting, Fort Atkinson resident Shannon Hough arrived at the podium and delivered the following remarks: “Today I come before you with a sense of urgency as we address the recent series of dog attacks in our neighborhood. These incidents have left us deeply saddened and concerned for the safety of our residents, both human and animal.” 

She said it was imperative that the council take “swift and decisive action to prevent any further harm.”

She called the two incidents involving the dog “unprovoked” attacks, noting that she believed the incidents highlighted the “urgent need” to enforce the regulations outlined in Chapter 10, and sections 2 and 4, of the city’s ordinance to remove the animal from the community and revoke the permit for animal custody for the property owner responsible.

She said she believed that the definition of “public nuisance,” and “vicious animal,” as outlined in the ordinance, had been met by the dog’s behavior.

Additionally, she said, the incidents “underscore(ed) the necessity of holding negligent the owners accountable for their actions.”

Said Hough: “Given the severity of the dog’s aggression, and the repeated incidents under its ownership, regardless of the promises over and over that this will not happen again, we firmly believe that the safety of our community must be our top priority. Therefore, we advocate for the humane euthanasia of the dog in question.” 

Coming to the podium, Janke told those in attendance that “directly after the incident” he was asked by the dog’s owner for help. He described Lehmann as being “beside themselves on some of the behavior that the dog displayed that she was caught off guard by.”

Said Janke: “I think that, as the night progresses, and people start to talk about their grievances here, we’re going to hear a lot of inflammatory verbiage, you know, ‘vicious,’ you know, things on that nature, with all due respect to most everyone in the room, I doubt very highly that anyone has had the opportunity to actually work or handle a true vicious dog, and that’s a good thing.”

Janke said that he had handled the dog, and that the dog had “displayed a couple behavioral issues, which I would like to see very much addressed, and I would also like to see the owner of the dog take some measures to be more responsible and make sure that he is indeed muzzled and there’s proper fencing for the dog.”

Janke described himself as a “huge dog advocate” who, he said, has “participated in rescue for years.”

He advocated for proper training for the dog. 

Coming to the podium, Cambridge resident Donald Garlock said: “I’m a bite specialist and this is what I do for a living. Shad (Janke) called me in …”

The speaker was interrupted by the city clerk who explained that the city’s ordinances stipulate that only property owners or residents within the city are eligible to speak during public comments. Garlock agreed that he was not a resident or a property owner in the city. 

He said: “I was called in as a specialty case on this. It’s unfortunate because you guys need to hear what I have to say, because I’m the guy that knows …”

The city manager interrupted the speaker, saying: “This isn’t a hearing tonight.” 

Lehmann next appeared at the podium, saying: “I cannot express enough how truly sorry I am for the incidents that have happened. They were unexpected. I never in a million years thought this would happen.” 

Lehmann said she was aware that people in her neighborhood were concerned about safety.

She said she had contacted a fencing company and had received an estimate to have nearly the entirety of her yard fenced.

“It will be double gated, meaning there will be gates on my porch, there will be a gate ahead of that, and a main gate coming into the yard. That should help eliminate any dog breakouts. As far as my kids go, they are not allowed to walk any of my dogs at all, permanently, ever,” Lehmann said, adding that she would ensure that the dog in question would be muzzled whenever it left the yard.

Further, she said: “I have tags that go on the leash that say ‘don’t pet me,’ ‘In training,’ ‘I need space.’  Obviously the dog is licensed, it’s had its rabies shots, I have proof of that if you would like to see. I don’t know what else I can do, but if there’s anything else that I can do to ensure the safety of the community — I’m doing all I can now that I know. I just ask that you don’t euthanize him, please. My kids love this dog. So do I.”

Two other community members, including one of the individuals who was bitten by the dog, signed up to speak, but chose against it. 

A final speaker, Sandra Free, approached the podium. She said that after the first incident in February, she went to the police department and expressed her concerns about safety regarding the dog in question. She said she met with an officer and she pointed out to the officer the city’s Chapter 10 animal control ordinance, which, she said, “states every vicious animal, as determined by the licensing authority, shall be securely muzzled or caged when off the premises.”

She said she was assured by the officer that she would take the issue up with her superiors.

She said after she made her complaint, she was walking her own dog when she “ran into that dog’s owner.”

Free said she told Lehmann that she was worried about her dog’s behavior, further advising that if she would muzzle her dog, “that would take care of the concerns.”

Said Free: “She didn’t respond to me, and she did not muzzle the dog. So then on March 31st, the dog owner’s children were out playing with the dog on a leash in the street. The dog decided to chase after another neighbor — you know the leash was pulled out of the children’s hands, the dog bit the neighbor, the dog bit their dog. It states in the ordinance, it shall be unlawful for any person within the city to own, harbor, or keep any dog which assaults or attacks any person. That dog has attacked two people in the last two months. It seems like the ordinance is written to protect its citizens from this type of harm. It’s difficult for me to imagine that the city seems to be failing to take appropriate action.”

Free said that if the dog had been muzzled, “we wouldn’t be here today.”

She called on the council to “follow its own ordinances” to protect its citizens.

An action plan

In response to Bump’s April 2 letter, Lehmann said she took several steps. She, like Free, cited a section of the city’s 10-6 ordinance, titled “restraint,” which reads: “Every vicious animal, as determined by the licensing authority, shall be confined by the owner within a building or secure enclosure and shall be securely muzzled or caged whenever off the premises of its owner.”

On April 9, Lehmann said she received a quote for $2,841 from Lemke Fence of Jefferson, Inc., which outlined costs associated with enclosing the property’s front yard with a dog-eared picket fence.

She additionally shared an email received from Garlock, the area dog trainer who sought to address the council on April 4, in which he outlined steps he recommended should be taken to secure the dog.

A visit to Lehmann’s home by Fort Atkinson Online Monday made visible some preliminary fencing steps put in place, including a small wire enclosure in the Lehmann’s front yard, including a double-gating system. Additionally, a fully enclosed area with wire fencing confines the family’s dogs to a small area in the back yard. Lehmann demonstrated that the backyard enclosure can only be accessed from inside the house.

Frisbee and Lehmann have already begun working with Garlock to alter some of the dog’s protective behavior, Lehmann said. ‘

Plans for additional fencing remain on hold, Lehmann said, as she waits to fully understand “what will happen.” 

As stipulated in a letter from Bump, dated April 15, Frisbee must be removed from the premises by Thursday, April 25, which is when the 10-day window offered to rehome the dog expires.

Lehmann told FAO that she has taken steps to comply, noting that she has been seeking out people who have boxers or boxer mixes, “to see if they are interested in taking him, but we were only given 10 days.”

Lehmann said she also has been seeking help legally by reaching out to attorneys. She hopes to employ one to help her obtain “due process,” she said.

Said Lehmann: “We don’t know how that will play out. We are still looking into where I can place him, even if temporarily, or if an attorney can write a letter to stop this whole thing until we have due process. We are in that process. I have phone calls out.”

Additionally, Lehmann said: “I have a personal trainer, a master training and behavioralist. We now have a gate on our front deck. We will have more fencing coming. I don’t have an installation date yet because I am waiting to see what will happen.”

Frisbee has a muzzle, and t-shirts which say: ‘Don’t touch me. I’m in training.”

The trainer has been working with the family since “early April,” Lehmann said.

Lehmann said she was “shocked” when she received a letter from the police department giving her 10 days to remove Frisbee from her home.

“They (police department) asked me for a letter saying what I would do, and I was under the impression that if I did these things, everything would be fine.”

She said she sent the letter, outlining the corrections she was prepared to make, and within a matter of hours, she was informed that her pet license was revoked.

“The police chief requested the letter and I wrote the letter and sent it in. That was on April 15. I sent the letter and the police chief, about three hours later, they delivered by a cop a letter that says they are pulling my dog license,” Lehmann said, adding that she worries that the letter she sent offering measures of compliance was not considered before a decision to revoke her pet license was made.

Johnson: ‘I personally believe the city is in violation of its own ordinance’

In a written statement to FAO, Johnson noted that he, too, has looked at the city’s ordinance regarding animal control. Citing Chap. 10-6, paragraph D, he said it was his understanding that animals deemed “vicious” may “reside inside the city if restrained by secure location and muzzled if outside that location.”

He stated that Lehmann has acknowledged that her dog is deemed vicious by the city, and, he wrote, she has “shown documentation that she is bringing her situation into compliance.”

Johnson wrote: “After (the) city council meeting where public comments addressed the two incidents, the police department sent her a letter with demands for her to meet to be in compliance. I believe she has complied with that demand.”

Additionally, he wrote: “I believe (a dog trainer hired by Lehmann) attended the council meeting where this issue was (discussed), but was not allowed to speak during public comment due to a residency requirement. That would require a formal hearing that Robin Lehmann has not been allowed to have.”

Johnson concluded: “I personally believe the city is in violation of its own ordinance (he cited Chap. 10-6, paragraph D) for not allowing this ‘attempt to comply’ to go forward.”