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Vaud“My wife saw him violently shaking our cat. Everything happened really fast”
Accused of having let her two kuvasz breed dogs wander, who killed a neighbour’s feline, the owner of the canines appeared before the Veveysan Court on Wednesday.
According to the indictment, one of the defendant’s two canines grabbed the cat’s mouth full on a private terrace, which was fatally injured. Illustrative photo.
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“We had to close the patio door to the terrace, otherwise the dogs would have jumped on us. They had their fangs out. Then my wife saw one of them violently shaking our cat. Everything went very quickly, ”says the owner of the Carthusian, mortally wounded in his garden on the Riviera, one evening in December 2020. Living a kilometer further, a fifty-something, mistress of four kuvasz at the time of the facts, appeared on Wednesday before the Tribunal veveysan (VD), after opposing a penal order.
A “malicious act”
The defendant admits that two of her charges escaped from her garden through the gate, but certifies that they could not escape on their own. According to her, a malicious person opened the fence. To support the thesis of the “malicious act”, the accused reports having found the padlock of the “sheared” gate that evening.
Warned of contravening the cantonal law on wildlife, for having let her dogs roam, she invokes a bad combination of circumstances. “I couldn’t find any trace of blood or dirt on their fur. There were no traces of combat. They were calm,” she defends herself. She maintains that her dogs are not responsible for the death of the feline.
background
But these two canines have antecedents. In 2018, they had been implicated for having killed another cat, after attacking a person on his property, while in 2014, they had left the garden of the defendant to wander in the neighborhood, before bite, without reason, two police officers, intervened on the spot.
“His dogs are the only ones of this breed registered in the area,” said the owner of the unhappy feline. “The accused must realize that, when they are not under direct surveillance, they kill,” he adds, to explain the initiation of proceedings against him. For the loss of his animal, he asks for an indemnity of 6500 francs.
Arguing that in the criminal sense, no fault can be attributed to his client, who did everything to make her property watertight and secure, Me Peter Schaufelberger pleaded acquittal. On the other hand, for the Public Ministry, if an ill-intentioned third party had opened the door of the enclosure, the responsibility of the defendant would remain engaged, given the dangerousness of his dogs. The prosecution requested a fine of 1,500 francs and procedural costs for an almost similar amount. Verdict in a few days.
