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Rob Szalas, seen here with his Doberman Pinscher Dunaj outside the North Bay Humane Society on Thursday morning, said it looks like Dunaj will not be going home for the holidays after he and his legal team could not come to an agreement with the Health Unit. PHOTO BY LIAM BERTI
A day after it appeared as though a deal was struck to allow Dunaj the Doberman to return home for the holidays, the dog’s owner and legal liaison say that is not the case.
Despite the Health Unit statement yesterday that both parties had agreed on a deal for Dunaj to be released under strict confinement pending a hearing, owner Rob Szalas and close friend Dan Paulfranz say no such agreement was ever reached.
Speaking in front of the Humane Society with Dunaj in tow on Thursday morning, Szalas and Paulfranz said that, as it stands, Dunaj is not going home for the holidays.
“We haven’t got a hearing set, we don’t have an agreement made, so it looks like Dunaj is not going home for Christmas,” said Paulfranz, close friend to Szalas and the liaison to their legal team. “The terms and conditions of the agreement could not be accepted.”
Paulfranz said he and Szalas could not allude to the details of the agreement, but did say that the two legal teams are working on the next steps to reaching that agreement.
The North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit recently released a statement claiming that “due to witness safety and death threats received through social media, the hearing will be conducted in writing and documents will not be available to the public.”
“There has to be an agreement and the parties can’t seem to come to that agreement; the terms and conditions are not acceptable,” Paulfranz explained.
“We want to get an open hearing where we have the opportunity to have a cross-examination of the witnesses,” he continued. "They’re looking to have a closed paper submission hearing, where we wouldn’t have the opportunity to cross-examine.”
Szalas and Paulfranz also said that their party had signed a version of an agreement but that the Health Unit did not.
Szalas also said that the confinements in the preliminary agreement included Dunaj being confined to his studio apartment except for between 7:30-8 a.m. and 9:30-10 p.m.
“I don’t want him going out twice a day, thirty minutes a day, for the remaining 10 years of his life,” he said.
For more on the original statement and story, click here: http://www.baytoday.ca/content/news/details.asp?c=70629
There have been reports from the Health Unit that there have been a total of four investigated dog bites prior to the decision to have Dunaj removed and euthanized. They have also said that Szalas was aware of the investigations and did not appeal any of the notices.
Szalas, however, said there were three reports over the course of the last four years, but no actual bites. He also said he questions why he hasn’t been privy to any photos or evidence if such allegations have come forward.
“There have been no bites,” Szalas put simply. “Three people, three phone calls, but no bites.”
Paulfranz said he would not comment on those allegations until the evidence is presented.