The Case of the Problematic Poodle - Part 3

Today’s interesting case is the third in our series of blogs for the Case of the Problematic Poodle.

In Part 1 we covered the incident in January 2020 involving the adult standard Poodle known as Charlie, owned by Ian and Marguerite Sisett, which occurred in Kelowna, British Columbia. In that incident, Charlie had bitten and caused serious injury to a small dog named Spike, owned by a Ms. Melanie Michaels, and this had led an animal control officer working for the Regional District of Central Okanagan to issue Mr. Sisett a $1000 ticket for allegedly violating the Regional District’s animal control bylaw. Mr. Sisett had disputed this ticket but, after a trial in the Provincial Court, it had been upheld and Mr. Sisett had been convicted of violating Section 36 of the bylaw, which made it an offence for a person to “cause or permit” a dog to become dangerous.

Following that, in Part 2, we went on to explore how Mr. Sisett had appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. On the appeal, Mr. Sisett had been successful at having his conviction and the $1000 ticket quashed, because the lower court had applied the wrong legal test. The Provincial Court had equated the fact that Mr. Sisett had let his dog Charlie run off leash (which was prohibited by the bylaw) with causing or permitting the dog bite incident and the Supreme Court ruled this was legally incorrect. Although the Supreme Court did not dispute that Charlie met the definition of a dangerous dog, they found that, to be guilty of causing or permitting this dangerous condition, a person must actively participate in causing it or, at least, know of the possibility of it occurring and fail to prevent it. Since there was no evidence that Mr. Sisett had encouraged the aggressive behaviour, or knew that Charlie had aggressive tendencies, the Supreme Court had found no basis for a guilty verdict and therefore overturned the conviction.

That was not the end of the legal disputes involving Charlie and the Sisetts though. In the summer of 2021, before the appeal of Mr. Sisett’s $1000 ticket had even begun being heard by the Supreme Court, there would unfortunately be another incident involving Charlie which drew the attention of the authorities and the legal system.

In July 2021, Danielle Dorosh decided to go on vacation with her family in the city of Kelowna, British Columbia. She rented a home in the city to stay in for a week during her vacation and brought along her Yorkshire Terrier named Nahla. This rental home happened to be next door to the Sisett residence.

After arriving at her vacation rental, Ms. Dorosh saw that the Sisetts’ three Poodles would run towards the fence separating the two properties, in a manner that she considered unfriendly. However, nothing further occurred at this time.

Later, on July 18th, 2021, as Ms. Dorosh and her family were in the process of packing up to leave the house, she turned to find that her small dog Nahla was now in the yard of the Sisett property and Charlie had grabbed onto Nahla with his jaws and was shaking her back and forth. Ms. Dorosh jumped over the fence and rushed over to her dog to free her from Charlie’s jaws, which she succeeded in doing. Unfortunately, in the process, Ms. Dorosh did suffer some scrapes and bruises and, during the chaos, Nahla bit Ms. Dorosh on the face, likely due to panic. Nahla also suffered some serious lacerations herself from the incident.

Following this incident, the Regional District of Central Okanagan and its animal control officers took enforcement action, seizing Charlie the Poodle under authority granted by Section 49 of the provincial law known as the Community Charter. A law which, among other things, authorizes animal control officers to seize dangerous dogs in certain circumstances to protect public safety.

They also laid a total of seven charges against Mr. Sisett for alleged violations of the Community Charter and the Regional District’s Responsible Dog Ownership Bylaw, which can be summarized as follows:

1. On January 20th, 2020, that Mr. Sisett caused or permitted Charlie to seriously injure another dog while in a public place, contrary to Section 49(1)(b) of the Community Charter. Note this charge refers back to the incident discussed in Part 1 of our series, where Charlie injured the dog named Spike, owned by Ms. Michaels. Mr. Sisett had been issued a $1000 ticket for this incident back in 2020 but it had eventually been thrown out after an appeal to the Supreme Court of BC in 2021.

2. On March 1, 2021, that Mr. Sisett failed to obtain a dangerous dog licence for Charlie as required by Section 11 of the Responsible Dog Ownership Bylaw.

3. On or about July 10th to July 18th, 2021, Mr. Sisett caused or permitted Charlie to become a nuisance dog contrary to Section 34 of the Responsible Dog Ownership Bylaw. This was based on the allegation that Charlie was charging the fence between the Sisett property and the vacation rental property next door, as it was alleged this made him a nuisance dog as defined in the bylaw.

4. On or about July 18th, 2021, Mr. Sisett did not keep Charlie in a locked enclosure as required for dangerous dogs under Section 39(2) of the Responsible Dog Ownership Bylaw.

5. On or about July 18th, 2021, Mr. Sisett caused or permitted Charlie to become likely to become deemed likely to kill or injure a person or domestic animal, contrary to Section 49(1)(c) of the Community Charter.

6. On or about August 19th, 2021, Mr. Sisett did not have a dangerous dog warning sign posted on his property as required by Section 40 of the Responsible Dog Ownership Bylaw.

7. On or about August 19th, 2021, Mr. Sisett did not have Charlie implanted with a microchip as required for dangerous dogs under Section 41 of the Responsible Dog Ownership Bylaw.

In January 2023, Mr. Sisett went to trial in the Provincial Court of British Columbia before Judge A. Tam.

At the very beginning of the trial, the judge found there was no evidence to support the possibility of a conviction on two of the seven charges because, the sections in the Community Charter that were cited as the basis for those were not actually violations a person could be charged with. Rather, those sections were simply clauses which set out definitions for and procedures for dealing with dangerous dogs, including the procedure for having a court order the destruction of a dangerous dog.

The lawyer representing the Regional District of Central Okanagan as its prosecutor explained that it had not actually been intended to have a punishment imposed on Mr. Sisett for those counts, but rather they were asking the Provincial Court to declare Charlie to be a dangerous dog under those sections and possibly order the animal to be destroyed. Mr. Sisett expressed surprise at hearing this, stating it had not been made clear to him that this is what the Regional District was asking for. Based on the way the court document was written, Mr. Sisett stated he thought these two counts were like the other five, asking for a sentence to be imposed on him, not his dog.

Judge Tam agreed with Mr. Sisett’s arguments and ruled that the way the prosecutor had written the two counts into the document with the other five was confusing and failed to give adequate notice to Mr. Sisett of what was being asked for. Consequently, these two of the seven counts were dismissed, and the court went on to deal with the remaining five counts against Mr. Sisett.

In the trial of these five other counts, Mr. Sisett raised some arguments that he had at his earlier trials, namely that his prosecution by the Regional District and its staff was an abuse of process and unfair. He also argued that his dog Charlie was not a danger to the public and did not deserve to be labeled as such.

Judge Tam rejected Mr. Sisett’s argument that Charlie was not a dangerous dog. He pointed out that, back in 2020 after the first incident involving Charlie, an animal control officer had served Mr. Sisett with a notice designating him a dangerous dog. He further pointed out that, if Mr. Sisett wanted to challenge that designation, the proper course of action was to file an application for judicial review of the officer’s decision, not to bring it up in the middle of a trial. Since the proper process had not been followed, he would not consider overturning the animal control officer’s decision in 2020 to designate Charlie as a dangerous dog.

Judge Tam also went on to state, though he was not required to do so, he was satisfied that Charlie qualified for the designation as a dangerous dog under the law and that the animal control officer was justified in making that designation. He stated that, despite Mr. Sisett’s claims that Ms. Michaels may have accidentally injured her own dog when she was kicking at Charlie during the incident in 2020, the logical conclusion was that Charlie was the one responsible for the injuries. He also clarified that, although Mr. Sisett had been successful in getting his $1000 ticket from that incident later thrown out, that was not because Charlie was not dangerous, but only because the accusation in the ticket (i.e. that Mr. Sisett had caused or permitted Charlie to become dangerous) had no evidence to support it.

Respecting Mr. Sisett’s allegations that the prosecution was an abuse of process and motivated by a desire to cause him financial and psychological harm, Judge Tam also declined to endorse Mr. Sisett’s arguments. He said he found no facts to back up these accusations against the Regional District, its animal control officer or prosecutor.

On the second charge in the list, that of Mr. Sisett not purchasing a dangerous dog licence for Charlie, Judge Tam convicted Mr. Sisett. He said he didn’t find Mr. Sisett’s arguments persuasive that it was a minor and trivial oversight, noting that he had purchased the licence a year late and only after being reminded by the animal control officer.

On the third charge, which accused Mr. Sisett of causing or permitting Charlie to become a nuisance dog, Judge Tam found Mr. Sisett not guilty. The charge was based on the testimony of Ms. Dorosh who stated she witnessed the Sisett dogs charging at the fence, which would qualify as nuisance behaviour under the bylaw. However, there were three problems that the judge had with this: 1) he was not satisfied that Ms. Dorosh had sufficiently identified Charlie as one of the dogs running at the fence; 2) he was not satisfied that the charging at the fence had happened repeatedly (which was required to meet the bylaw definition) and 3) he was not satisfied there was evidence to prove Mr. Sisett had “caused or permitted” the behaviour.

For the fourth of the seven counts, which charged Mr. Sisett with failing to keep Charlie in an enclosure as required under the bylaw for dangerous dogs, the judge convicted Mr. Sisett. Indeed, Mr. Sisett himself admitted to Charlie not being in an enclosure on the day in question, saying that he didn’t believe he should be locked up in a cage because that was cruel.

For the sixth charge, which alleged Mr. Sisett had not posted a dangerous dog warning sign as required by the bylaw, the judge noted Mr. Sisett had in fact put up a sign, but the sign in question did not meet the specifications set out in the bylaw. Instead, it was a sign which displayed a cartoon caricature of an animal and bore the phrase “Beware Vicious Beast.” Consequently, Judge Tam convicted Mr. Sisett on this charge as well.

On the final charge, that of failing to implant Charlie with a microchip as required by the bylaw, the judge also found Mr. Sisett guilty, noting Mr. Sisett admitted to not having done so and had failed to provide any defence.

The trial was now over. Out of the seven counts originally charged against Mr. Sisett, two had been dismissed before trial for lack of evidence, he had been acquitted on one and he had been convicted on the remaining four. Some time went by, and, in March 2023, Judge Tam passed sentence on Mr. Sisett for the offences he had been convicted of.

In total, Judge Tam imposed a fine of $4000 for the four offences and ordered Mr. Sisett to pay the Regional District $7000 to cover its legal costs. Additionally, the judge imposed a restitution order requiring Mr. Sisett to pay Ms. Dorosh $1000 for the injuries to her dog and herself. Finally, the court also imposed an order on Mr. Sisett which directed him to retain a dangerous dog licence as required by the bylaw, to microchip Charlie within 15 days, to put up a proper warning sign that met the requirements of the bylaw within 15 days and to either have Charlie’s enclosure inspected and approved by animal control officers within 15 days or, if a new enclosure needed to be installed, to install it within 45 days and then have it inspected and approved by animal control officers within 15 days after that.

And so, there ends our series on Charlie the Poodle and the Sisetts. So, what lessons can be drawn from this saga which stretched over years?

I think it highlights that having a pet is a considerable responsibility, which can have significant legal consequences if things go wrong. It reinforces that, if you’re going to take responsibility for having custody of another living creature, you need to always be mindful of how that animal, and other persons and animals, are affected and exercise due diligence. This is both for legal reasons and ethical reasons. Having a pet is not something to be entered into lightly.

I honestly wish Charlie the best and hope that in future he and the Sisetts can avoid any further troubles, both for their own sake, and for the sake of other persons and creatures who might be harmed.

SOURCES:

Community Charter, SBC 2003, c 26. https://canlii.ca/t/5660d

Johansen, N. (2023, April 28). Kelowna man ordered to pay $12,000 over dangerous dog bylaw offences. Castanet. https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/423689/Kelowna-man-ordered-to-pay-12-000-over-dangerous-dog-bylaw-offences

Regional District of Central Okanagan Responsible Dog Ownership Bylaw No. 1343, 2014 (Consolidated). https://www.rdco.com/en/your-government/resources/Bylaws/BL1343-Consolidated-Regulate-License-Control-Responsible-Dog-Ownership-2023.pdf

Regional District of Central Okanagan v. Sisett, 2023 BCPC 47 (CanLII). https://canlii.ca/t/jw601

Regional District of Central Okanagan v. Sisett, 2023 BCPC 100 (CanLII). https://canlii.ca/t/jx8rd

Regional District v. Sisett, 2023 BCPC 75 (CanLII). https://canlii.ca/t/jwvxb

VLOG VERSION