Dunaj chows down on a chicken breast cooked by owner Rob Szalas. Photo by Jeff Turl.
Dunaj is set to be released today (Thursday) from the Humane Society after a deal was struck with the Health Unit to allow the dog to return home under strict conditions. The dog was not released yesterday, as has been reported elsewhere.
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Now that the public appeal process has turned private, some facts in the Dunaj the Downtown Doberman case may never become public knowledge.
The North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit, in a release this morning said, “Due to witness safety and death threats received through social media, the hearing will be conducted in writing and documents will not be available to the public.”
Jill Faulkner, Communications Coordinator at the Health Unit told BayToday that the appeal going private is by mutual consent.
“It was a negotiation between the two parties,” she said.
So many of the questions being raised now, many never face public scrutiny because of privacy.
Chief among those is why did it take five bites before a destruction order was issued, and if the dog is that dangerous, why is it being released?
“That’s going to be part of the process for the hearing. As a health unit we have to do a risk assessment and that involves a number of things and that’s part of the hearing so we can’t talk about that,” said Faulkner.
“Unfortunately, that’s all we can say right now.”
The Unit also won’t say if it talked to the man involved in the October incident.
“That’s part of the investigation. We can’t comment on that either.”
Are the previous dog bites documented?
“When there is a report of a dog bite it is mandatory that---whether it’s the hospital or health care provider that sees the dog bite, by law they have to report it to the Health Unit. So that’s all part of this investigation that we can’t really talk about,” said Faulkner. “Where the information came from and that kind of thing.”
“Part of the problem is that our processes are under evaluation for this hearing, so we can’t really comment on that. We’ve said what we can at this point.”
The Health Unit also won't talk about the death threats. "The Health Unit has provided a statement and will not be providing more information at this time."
However, one thing will become public promises Faulkner.
“Once the hearing is done we will be providing all that information on our processes.”
A date for the hearing has not been announced, although January 5th has been mentioned.
Efforts to contact Dunaj’s owner, Rob Szalas today, were unsuccessful.
