The Town of Oyster Bay has been accused of keeping its three GeesePeace Border collies in cruel and inhumane housing at the Town’s animal shelter.  But that’s not the half of it.  Not only have the dogs been sadly neglected, as touched on last week, a report commissioned by the Town shows they have been badly trained and badly handled. 

Katherine Dattoma, a leading agility trainer in the area, was invited by the Town to help with their Border collies in 2010.  She studied the dogs.  She also interviewed the handlers and states she was “was able to evaluate the dog/handler interactions at the shelter and at many of the working locations.”

What she found disturbed her. 

“The handlers were not provided with even the basics of dog training,” she said.   “Novice dogs were paired with novice handlers and then expected to perform off-leash work in public places!”

She believed that the handlers “were unequipped to handle the major problems exhibited by the Border collies.” 

She presented the facts and findings in her report to Town staff last year.  Her primary recommendation was to house the three dogs with their handlers rather than in the stressful environment of an animal shelter, advice that went unheeded.    

So Ms. Dattoma took the opportunity of presenting her case directly to Supervisor Venditto at a recent Town meeting that was open to the public.  After introducing herself, she went straight to the heart of the issue by informing the meeting that “all three dogs had behavioral problems that interfered with their ability to perform their jobs in a safe and efficient manner.”

She continued: “The dogs are unable to focus for a training session and enter their work environment in a state of over-arousal.”  

“One runs away chasing squirrels,” she added, “another kills geese, and a third violently attacks the glass windows of the truck.”

She analyzed each individual dog.  First Xena:

“Xena loves to play ball with her handler,” she stated.  “Xena doesn’t like to chase geese.  She’s extremely reactive towards any movements outside the truck while being transported.”

She went on to describe the second dog, Abbey.

“Abbey runs away,” she told the audience.

Her professional opinion is that “a Border collie (that’s) properly bonded with its handler almost never runs away.”

 She continued: “Sometimes Abbey will chase the geese.  Sometimes she comes when called, sometimes she disappears into the woods wasting hours of working time.”

For a dog brought in under guidance from GeesePeace (an animal rights organization), the third dog, Skye is even more of a liability.  Ms Dattoma’s words were brief and blunt:

“Skye loves to chase geese.  She also loves to kill geese.”

Ms. Dattoma cataloged a list of problems displayed by Skye as she attempted to do the job of clearing geese in a safe, humane manner:

“She doesn’t take direction from her handler, has no recall, no release, no ‘down’ at a distance – her handler has no control over her actions with the geese.”

If the behavioral issues of these unfortunate dogs look like an accident waiting to happen, we’re too late.  In 2008 the New York State Bar Association recorded the following details from a court case:

“A jogger in a park located in the Village of Massapequa Park and the Town of Oyster Bay was bitten on the abdomen by a Border collie named Zeke, who was part of the GeesePeace program designed to scare Canada geese from public parks.”  The dog was on an extendable leash with a novice handler.

In conclusion, what do we have here?  One Border collie in the Town of Oyster Bay/GeesePeace program that manages to bite a jogger while its novice handler fails to control it on an extendable leash; another Town dog that wants to play ball rather than work; a different Town dog that runs away rather than chase geese; and a fourth Town dog that loves to kill geese? 

There’s an unfortunate pattern here.