Does this look like an “animal exhibiting vicious behaviors”?

 

Well, apparently Shasta has a dark side. 

It seems that she bit someone!  Yeah, I know.  I don’t believe it either. 

Here’s what we know:

As we often do on Sunday evenings before we drop Alex and Kat off at UW, we (Tom, Kat, Aleks and me) went out for dinner last weekend at The Ram, a restaurant at the University Village shopping center near the University of Washington campus.  And as we often do when we go somewhere together as a family, we took Shasta with us.  She couldn’t go in the restaurant, of course, so we cracked the window open a tad and left her in the car.  Shasta’s used to this and seems to really enjoy “people watching,” wagging her tail and yes, sometimes barking as people walk nearby.

Nothing seemed different when we came back to the car after dinner.  Shasta was happy to see us, as usual, and after dropping Aleks and Kat off at school, Tom and I headed back across the bridge and went home.

The next day when Tom came home from work, he found a “Seattle Animal Control Warning Notice” posted on our front door.  It indicated that Shasta had bitten someone while she was locked in our car that evening!

HUH?!

I still don’t believe it, but here’s the story as indicated on the Warning Notice from Seattle Animal Control.  There are many holes and gaps, but this is what I was told when I called the officer who wrote up the warning (but who didn’t witness the incident; it seems that no human except our accuser did).  It seems that Shasta somehow managed to bite a man’s pinkie, requiring a trip to the hospital and three stitches for the mystery man.  (I do feel badly for him.  Surely that must have not been any fun…)

THAT is all we know!

Here’s what we don’t know:

1. How did the man’s hand get close enough to be bitten?  Remember, the window was cracked open only about 3 inches and the car doors were locked.
2. Why was this man close enough to our car to be bitten?
3. What could have prompted a VERY friendly, sweet Golden Retriever to bite someone?  This is totally and completely unlike Shasta in every way!  In fact, we always joke that if she saw a burglar at our front door, she’d just go get her tennis ball, thinking he was there to play with her!
4. Even if Shasta was behaving in a threatening manner (because she’s inside a locked car and she’s feeling both confined and protective), why would anyone put their hand up to her?
5. Did Mystery Man trespass?
6. Why doesn’t he want his identity revealed?

So our criminal doggie is quarantined for 10 days.  We can’t even take her for a walk.  We will also likely be cited and fined $269 – which we will fight.  If we do end up in a court room with Mystery Man, we will definitely ask a few questions – the first of which is, “If a dog in a parked, locked car is barking at you, even if it seems to be a harmless, friendly dog, why would you put your hand close enough to the dogs mouth to be bitten?!”

Actually, now that I think of it, Shasta HAS bitten someone before!  Remember THIS?!