A German Bulldog that had been living in the community of Lorette has now been declared a dangerous dog. Council for the Rural Municipality of Tache made that ruling Tuesday afternoon after hearing eyewitness accounts from people who have been attacked by that dog.

Joanne Dumaine and Christopher Joseph are the owners of that dog. They live along Johnson Avenue in Lorette but were not present for Tuesday's hearing.

Tache council first heard from Heather Glor, who shared the story of her husband Mark who was attacked on July 13, 2018, by that dog. Glor says the German Bulldog lunged at her husband's throat. Her husband, who stands six feet, three inches tall had both his shoulder and hand punctured and required hospitalization.

But that wasn't the first time this dog attacked a human being. Jessica Thurston from the RM of Reynolds shared how her 12-year-old daughter was mauled by this dog on September 15, 2017. Thurston says her daughter lost a lot of blood after being mauled down to the artery in her arm. The injuries are so severe that her daughter requires reconstructive surgery and is also now receiving trauma counselling.

Tache Mayor Robert Rivard says the municipality has a bylaw in place, allowing council to declare a dog dangerous and to add appropriate conditions. After hearing from the public Tuesday afternoon, council was unanimous in declaring this particular dog in Lorette a dangerous dog. Further to that, if this animal is ever again seen in the municipality, Rivard says it will be seized and destroyed. Rivard says the owners have stated the dog has been taken care of, though he admits he's not sure exactly what that means.

At Tuesday's public hearing, there were concerns over the length of time it took between the attack on the 12-year-old girl last September and the public hearing this week. Rivard says that is because there are legal steps the municipality is obligated to follow before it can declare a dog dangerous. This includes first working with the owner.

"People were talking about this dog being aggressive," recalls Rivard. "As far as we knew it hadn't bit anybody, because we couldn't get the files from the RCMP or from Reynolds, they didn't have anything on record, even though obviously the dog had attacked somebody over there."

Rivard says they also tried to work with the owner.

"We couldn't find the owner, they were hiding from us," notes Rivard. "So even to serve them with papers for the dangerous dog, it took us a couple of months to serve them because we just couldn't find the owner."

Meanwhile, the Tache Mayor says council is considering taking this one step further, He says they may lobby the province to see if the municipality can seize a dog sooner, should this sort of thing ever happen again. Another option is banning certain breeds of dogs in Tache.

Some residents have asked whether the municipality can ban Dumaine and Joseph from owning dogs in Tache. Chief Administrative Officer Christine Hutlet says even though they have never dealt with dog owners who so blatantly disregard public safety, the municipality has no authority to rule someone unfit to have a dog.