SWAMPSCOTT — The owners of three pit bulls who attacked other dogs in two separate incidents last year are leaving town, after the Select Board determined their dogs were “dangerous” under state law.
The Swampscott Select Board held a public hearing Wednesday to determine the fate of the dogs kept by Glenn, Irene, and Rebecca Schwartz, of 50 Puritan Lane.
The Select Board had already given a temporary ruling exiling one of the dogs from town — 4-year-old Luci — and imposed restrictions on 2-year-old Jed and 7-month-old Bubba following an initial dangerousness hearing last month.
The Schwartz family was not present at Wednesday’s meeting, but had their attorney send a letter claiming they will be moving out of state with all three dogs on or by April 24.
The Select Board chose to keep its temporary ruling place until April 24, and modified it to allow Jed and Bubba to leave the Puritan Lane property for grooming and veterinary appointments, as well as to go out of town.
“If for whatever reason the Schwartzes do not move, this board will take up a final ruling,” said Select Board Chairman Peter Spellios.
The Schwartzes’ three pet pit bulls were involved in two separate attacks on other dogs on Nov. 13 and Dec. 24 last year.
The Select Board opted not to consider having the dogs euthanized because the attacks were on other dogs, rather than humans.
An initial dangerousness hearing regarding the dogs was held Jan. 29, during which the Select Board heard hours of testimony from witnesses, the dogs’ owners, the owners of the attacked dogs, and the town’s animal control officer, and investigating detective Ted Delano.
At that meeting, the Select Board ruled the dogs are satisfactorily “dangerous” under the state statute’s definition, and on Feb. 18 exiled Luci, the dog determined to have led the attacks, from Swampscott. The Select Board members did not rule on whether Bubba would be allowed to walk on public streets again. The Select Board also ruled all three dogs, must receive professional training and be confined to a pen when in their owners’ yard.
According to resident Angela O’Brien, she was walking her dog, a black Labrador mix named Bailey, with a friend, Terri Sabelli, on Nov. 13 when two unleashed pit bulls approached and started sniffing Bailey near Puritan Lane. O’Brien said the pit bulls then attacked her dog unprovoked, and a third pit bull then arrived and joined in the attack, biting Bailey’s head.
O’Brien said she was “terrified” and couldn’t stop the attack by kicking and screaming at the pit bulls. Both O’Brien and Sabelli said the attack was emotionally distressing, and they feared for their own safety.
“I had never felt a fear like that,” Sabelli said. “No ability to negotiate, no ability to reason or anything. These dogs are going to kill us and I remember thinking this is going to hurt so bad when these dogs attack us.”
Rebecca Schwartz, the pit bulls’ owners’ daughter who lives in Salem, but was at her parents’ house during the attack, ran over and stopped the Nov. 13 attack by separating the dogs.
However, O’Brien’s dog already had a torn ear and puncture wounds to its throat and chest, she said. O’Brien said Bailey has healed physically, but has become easily frightened since the incident.
According to Rebecca Schwartz, only Luci was involved in the attack, and she contests O’Brien’s version of the story. She said Jed has a bad leg and can’t walk. Schwartz also said her parents recently moved from New Hampshire and were having work done on the Swampscott house, and contractors going in and out of the yard must have left the gate unlocked.
On Dec. 24, Nigel Godley, of Marblehead, was walking his dog and a friend’s dog on Puritan Lane, when an unleashed pit bull attacked his dog, he said. According to Godley, the town’s animal control officer eventually arrived and stopped the attack, but the pit bull, Luci, ran back home.
The pit bulls’ owners were given a $200 fine for the unleashed dogs during the second attack. After a quarantine period at Ocean View Kennel in Revere, Luci was sent to live with Rebecca Schwartz in Salem.
According to Glenn Schwartz, the family was “horrified beyond belief” by the attacks, and they had “never had any prior incidences at all” with the dogs. He also said he was unwilling to relocate Bubba or Jed, which he described as gentle and loving.
