A loose husky mix injured three people, including a child, during a biting attack in Southwest Portland on Sunday, leaving an officer to secure the dog before paramedics could safely reach the victims. The animal was roaming unconstrained near a residential block, according to police, and the people it attacked were reportedly its owners.
The attack unfolded around 12:30 p.m. Sunday in the 2900 block of Southwest Dolph Court, OregonLive reported. The injured group included an adult woman, a teen boy and a child; police said none of the injuries was life-threatening. The first responding officer found the child hiding in the bed of a pickup truck. After placing a leash on the dog and tying it to a fence, the officer enabled emergency medical responders to reach the victims safely.
Multnomah County Animal Services Is Investigating
The case is now being handled as an animal-safety investigation by Multnomah County Animal Services. The county agency says its field-services team responds to loose aggressive animals, investigates bites, manages quarantine and handles potentially dangerous-dog classifications, according to Multnomah County Animal Services. The ownership detail could matter as investigators sort out how the dog became loose and what restrictions may be appropriate.
County Rules Could Trigger Dangerous-Dog Review
Under Multnomah County's animal-services ordinance, a dog that is at large and aggressively bites a person can meet the standard for a Level 4 potentially dangerous-dog classification, subject to the investigation and any hearing process. The ordinance separately defines a dangerous dog as one that causes serious physical injury or death, so the reported non-life-threatening injuries do not by themselves establish that higher classification. Oregon law also provides that a keeper may be strictly liable for economic damages if a court has already deemed the dog potentially dangerous and it later causes injury, according to Oregon law.
Dog's Current Custody Remains Unclear
The dog's current custody was unclear as of Monday, and authorities had not announced whether it would be returned, quarantined or held by the county, according to the OregonLive report. Multnomah County Animal Services' investigation is expected to determine what happened immediately before the bites and whether the dog meets local dangerousness criteria. For neighbors, the urgent question is less about the breed label than whether officials can keep this particular animal from another encounter.
