Which dog bit the participant in the dog course?

Ironically, the Rottweiler of the course leader is said to have bitten a participant in a dog course in the thigh. It’s one word against the other.

The Dietikon District Court dealt with the question of whether or not a Rottweiler bit a 25-year-old woman.

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There are two completely different versions of what is said to have happened on July 25, 2020 in a dog course in Zurich’s Limmattal. One thing is certain: A 25-year-old course participant was then taken to the hospital with a bite wound on her thigh. According to her version, the bite wound came from the course leader’s six-year-old Rottweiler. But according to their statements, the Italian must have been bitten by her own Labrador, which nobody saw.

The Labrador owner only reported the course two weeks later. The public prosecutor initially settled the case with a non-handling order. However, this was overturned by the High Court, so that the public prosecutor then charged the case with negligent bodily harm and violation of the dog law. He demands that the 54-year-old Swiss course leader be sentenced to a conditional fine of 120 daily rates of CHF 80 each and a fine of CHF 500.

The young woman initially said she had been bitten by an unknown dog on a walk. However, she later explained that she only said so because she was asked to do so by the dog trainer, who feared for her license and custody of the Rottweiler. When the dog trainer demonstrated an exercise with the Rottweiler during the course, the Rottweiler pounced on her Labrador, tripped the dog trainer and carried him away and bit her, the private prosecutor, in the thigh.

«Labrador not under control»

The accused dog trainer tells a completely different story in front of the Dietikon district court. The course participant showed up too late and stressed for the family companion dog course. She was overwhelmed, didn’t have her young, fidgety dog ​​under control at all and didn’t manage to take him to the nearby Limmat to cool off on a hot summer’s day.

She, the course leader, then demonstrated an exercise with her Rottweiler in which the course participants stood in line with their dogs. She went through the group with the Rottweiler and turned 180 degrees at the end. She slipped and fell. She doesn’t know why. But her dog had nothing to do with it, he just looked at her in amazement and stayed calm and relaxed next to her. He neither pulled nor dragged her anywhere.

The course participant was not in the trellis, but was standing about 10 meters away with her Labrador at an angle and suddenly uttered a scream. She must have been bitten by her own dog. But the coach didn’t see that. She then drove the injured woman to the hospital. When the judge asked why she was wrongly accused, she replied that she didn’t know what was going on in the young woman’s head. From her experience, however, there are people who cannot admit if they do not have something under control.

Statements referred to as “slapstick”.

The bitten woman’s lawyer calls this version an unrealistic “slapstick” and says: “The probability of being struck by lightning is much greater.” It was completely unrealistic that the course instructor suddenly fell and her dog stayed next to her “like a little lamb”. It is much more obvious that the Rottweiler was “triggered” by the Labrador’s nervous behavior and pounced on it.

However, there are also testimonies from the four other course participants who were standing in line with their dogs at the time of the incident and were concentrating on the course leader’s exercise. All had stated that they had not seen a bite. The course instructor fell on her own.

These statements “stink to high heaven,” says the private prosecutor’s attorney. It must be “a conspiratorial agreement” between the dog trainer and her friends “conspired group of regular customers”. The course leader was found guilty, her financial liability had to be determined in principle, and the claim had to be referred to civil proceedings. His client is still traumatized today, and she missed out on modeling jobs because of the scars.

Defense attorneys are asking for a full acquittal. The accused is one of the most renowned dog trainers in Switzerland. Her Rottweiler had never been conspicuous in six years. The young woman, on the other hand, did not have her dog under control. Her motive is probably that she wants to have the accused pay for a desired cosmetic surgical procedure, he speculates.

In addition, the private prosecutor had already demonstrably lied with her first statements. In his pleading, he also repeatedly accused her of other lies, which caused the young woman in the room to burst into tears. With the help of her family, she also “built up a massive threat against the course instructor,” says the defender.

“We don’t know how it happened”

The Dietiker single judge acquitted the accused in full “in dubio pro reo”. The financial claims are referred to civil channels. “We don’t know what it was like in the end, so there can only be one acquittal,” the judge summarizes his reasoning.

The statements of the accused are consistent, free of contradictions and plausible. He does not consider her version to be a “slapstick”, but on the contrary: her variant is more plausible than that of the course participant. In any case, it is not implausible that a young dog who does not accept his owner would engage in a power struggle with her.

There are also four uninvolved witnesses. All said they had not seen a bite. If it really was a conspiracy, they would probably have said the owner had been bitten by her labrador. Her other statements would not work “greatly agreed”. In a conspiracy, it is also difficult to get four people in line without one of them stepping out.

Judgment GG220015 of August 18, 2022, not yet final.

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