On Thursday, January 17, 2002 in Olfen the event happened that dog owners have had to reckon with since 2002. The fenced in private property of a family in Olfen(Münsterland, Germany) was stormed by Local Authority and Police, two dogs were shot, two others chased by car, motorbike and helicopter. One dog was hit by a car on purpose, was then caught together with two others and taken to a boarding kennel. According to the Authorities the dogs are of mixed breed and are to have their Character Test next week. The detail of events: This is the research of Domino Dogs Germany, the association for all dog owners, on the action of the Police and the Public Order Department Olfen (NRW) against five medium sized dogs, which had an official certificate that they didn't belong to a so called fighting dog breed. But read for yourself. Photos for downloading and other information. Please make sure this report is widely distributed. Thank you. Yours truly, Martin Gatzemeier (Member of Domino Dogs) This then is the report. Reporters: Andrea Koch and Klaus Brzezinski; DDD Introduction: Because there had been a major police action in Olfen on 17.01.2002 including the police helicopter being used and shots being fired because of a number of what was claimed to be "fighting dogs" (quote "Bild": Fighting Dog Alarm), I decided to go to the place together with a journalist of the Süddeutschen Zeitung and accompanied by Klaus and Heike Brzezinski and to check on the background objectively. First impressions: The property of the families P. and P./N. is situated in the very idyllic and rural place of Olfen. Opposite the property is the municipal building yard (across the road). The house (a big old mansion) is surrounded by a 160cm (5'4") high fence. To get onto the property you have to go through a big iron dog proof gate, which houses the doorbell. In this house live the owner, his wife (Mr and Mrs P.), their daughter and her partner (Mr N), who have a child, four cats and two dogs. There are also other tennants. The entrance for the house owner is at the top, the other parties have their entrance at the back, including the daughter. Her bedroom and kitchen are towards the front on the building though, with the bedroom windows being to the left of the entrance to the house. Behind the house is also a biotope, where the dogs can bath and from where they were able to freely roam the horse paddocks until Summer, 2000. There is also a "party house" on the premises, a widow of which had been shattered at a recent break-in. The shards had all been removed from the widow frame. This is what we found: first the owner of the property welcomed us, then his daughter and her partner arrived. Mrs P wasn't present. She is suffering from shock and suffered a heart attack shortly after the police action, as she already had severe heart problems. We were shown the evidence of the shootout: a bullet hole in the bedroom widow, which had penetrated the shut metal blinds, two riccochets by the window, bullets, riccochets or similar in the flower borders, 2 bullet holes in the stone path, one in the garden fence (from the inside) and so on, all together we saw evidence of about ten shots. We then went into the daughter's flat (family P./N.) Family history: Mr P. has had dogs for forty years (mainly dogues) without any problem. The daughter rehomed an entire bitch from the local animal shelter (according to the shelter a Greyhound-Labrador mix, which comes in NRW under the 20/40 ruling). At that point in time she already had an Alano-mix dog (also a 20/40 dog) The bitch had a litter, some looked like Pointer-Whippet mongrels with narrow pointed noses, others were more stocky in head and body. Photographs failed to show any phaenotypical breed characteristics. After the Dangerous Dogs Act came into being the dogs were registered with the Public Order Department. There followed an inspection by a County Vet and the manager of the Public Order Department. They demanded the fence to be put up to the hight of 1.6m (5'4"), checked the dogs over and the County Vet declared them to be 20/40s. The owner wanted to do a character test with his dogs of his own free will, but the County Vet refused as this wasn't required for 20/40 dogs and, anyway, the dogs were all very friendly. The manager of the Public Order Department had it certified, that these were not fighting dogs, but mongrels which were coverd by the 20/40 ruling of the Dangerous Dogs Act. The Public Order Department did not ask the dog owner for a police report either. To make sure there would not be any hassle from the Public Order Office, the property was made smaller by putting up a second fence of 1.6m hight, which meant the dogs could not go into the horse paddocks any more, nor was there any danger of them barking at passers by. This was done of the owners' accord, to prevent any problems with the Public Order Department. What happened: in the morning about 5.30 A.M. the older Mrs P (wife of the owner) went outside the front door to have a cigarette while letting her three dogs out into the fenced in part of the garden for toiletting. During the night or early in the morning somebody must have opened the gate to the property and taken off the security chain. The woman could not see that in the darkness as the distance between the front door and the gate is about 20 meters. The three dogs then went out through the gate, opened by somebody unknown, and went over to the building yard. From there the woman heard a workman (at a very odd working time) shout: "Gerr off! Piss off!" She ran over, saw him gestivulating wildly, kick and hit at the dogs. Then he said: "One of them bit me!" The woman called the dogs, who came at once and therefore were back on the fenced in property of the family. The woman went back to the workman and asked what happened and whether he was hurt. He answered one of the dogs had bitten his leg. About 6 A.M. the woman asked her husband, whom she had told what had happened, to go over and find out precisely what had been going on. As the workman's trousers showed neither holes nor dirtmarks the husband doubted the man's claims. About 8 A.M. the daughter and her partner went over to the building site to see whether they could see the bite and perhaps begin to talk about compensation. They didn't see any sign of a wound either and could not see any damage to the trousers. When they asked to see the wound they were refused firmly. About 3 P.M. the daughter and her partner left the flat with their baby. Their own two dogs, which had not been involved in the incident in the morning, and their four cats were left behind. The other three dogs were in the owner's flat. About 3:30 P.M. (!) the owner's wife looked out of the window and saw 16 police cars with the policemen surrounding the property. Mr P went to the gate on his own, while the dogs stayed in the flat. The manager of the Public Order Office was at the gate, saying: "We are now going to confiscate your dogs." Mr P asked the officers to wait at the gate so he could ring his daugter. As an answer the Manager of the Public Order Office and all the policemen stormed the fenced in the inner area with drawn weapons, ready to shoot, and commanded Mr P to let the dogs out immediately, otherwise they would storm the flat. Mr P opened the front door in a state of shock and the dog ran in panic in the tense athmosphere amongst those "uninvited strange intruders," in the course of which one of the dogs nipped the Manager of the Public Order Department. A police man showed his sleeve to that dog, the dog pulled at the jacket and the policemen immediately started firing. Badly injured dog (1) went on for another ten meters and collapsed dead at the fence. As a number of policemen just fired wildly a second dog (2) was hit, but in the general confusion he vanished out of sight and was supposed to have fled together with dog (3) for fear of the shooting. Shocked by the shooting dog (4) and (5), who were in the daughter's flat with the four cats, dared to look through the closed metal blinds. When the manager of the Public Order Department shouted: "Kill the Lot" the policemen started firing again, without any thought that because of the closed metal blinds they could not know whether there was anybody in the room. Next to the window in the bedroom there was a blue rattan chair. A bullet went through that chair. It was the chair where the daughter used to sit while the baby had a lunch time nap in the parents' bed. In the meantime the daughter, her partner and the baby returned from their shopping trip and saw the police helicopter which had arrived, as well, to use their thermal imaging cameras to find two dogs which were said to have fled in a state of panic. The wounded dog (2) had not fled, but had taken a desperate jump through the broken widow of the party house. As he had been hit by a number of bullets he bled to death there without anybody knowing about it. Escaped dog number (3) was hit by a car 4 kilometers further on (Mr P suspects it was a police car) and had dragged himself badly injured into the back corner of a partly open garage. The daughter asked the vet, who had accompanied the police, and who had watched the whole thing in a state of shock with a stun gun in his hands, to follow the helicopter with her. As they arrived at the garage about four kilometers away they found that a number of policemen were stationed there as well (in the middle of a built up area) to again open fire on the dog. After a lengthy discussion the daughter was allowed to go to the dog, who had gone into hiding behind a dustbin. With a lot of encouragement he came to her, she picked him up ("..he was shaking and bleeding badly.....") and carried him to the vet's car. As she did that she heard one policeman say that they had not warned the inhabitants of the surrounding properties of the use of shotguns at the garage. One of the policemen had tears in his eyes as he saw the injured dog in her arms, so he had to turn away, saying that he himself had a dog. In the meantime the helicopter was going back to the property. The daughter hurried back with the vet and the injured dog to prevent dog number (2) to be killed, too. When she got back home her shocked mother (who had been told earlier by the police: "Lift your feet and get in, oldie") that she had found the dog dead in the party house. Completely shellshocked and beside herself she asked the daughter to have another look at him, he was already dead, but perhaps there was a tiny bit of hope that he might live. The manager of the Public Order Department then ordered the two dogs in the flat to be let out. Otherwise they would start again and the police would storm the flat. When the daughter insisted she was allowed to take the dogs to the car who took all three surviving dogs (the daughter's two and the injured dog) to a boarding kennel. And at the end: the dogs all have to go through a character test next week (including the injured one), though the outcome of the test seems to be a forgone conclusion as the Manager of the Public Order Department is involved. The owners are still completely traumatised, but want to use all legal means to get the dogs home as soon as possible. They are afraid for their safety. Andrea Koch Klaus Brzezinski

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