For 14 months Rusty was a dead dog walking as a Queensland council
poured $100,000 into a legal battle to defend an order to kill the
family pet. But he escaped the death sentence when a DNA test proved
he had been wrongly identified as a prohibited American pit bull
terrier. His owner Dino Da Fre bought Rusty for $300 as a
Staffordshire terrier cross from a pet store five years ago. "This
was one of the worst times of my life. I stopped working and I pretty
much couldn't sleep at all," he said. The legal dogfight has called
into question the methods used by Australian councils to identify and
destroy thousands of dangerous dogs. A submission is now being
prepared for the CMC, in which allegations will be made that
Queensland councils have engaged in official misconduct and misused
their power to seize and destroy dogs. "We believe that they have
given misleading evidence to magistrate's courts," said Linda Watson,
president of the Endangered Dog Breeder's Association of Australia.
Eighteen southeast Queensland councils use the same 22-point
checklist that wrongly identified Rusty. In her decision last week,
Beenleigh magistrate Sheryl Cornack deemed the checklist
was "subjective" and "not created for the purpose of identification
of dog breeds". "The system has not been subjected to independent
scientific testing or scrutiny," she said. While stopping short of
ruling on the legality of the test, Ms. Cornack has ordered Logan
City Council to pay Mr. Da Fre's costs of $20,833. The council's
legal bill totaled $74,000. Rusty's 450 days on death row cost it
$8,388 in sustenance fees plus $500 in veterinary care. Council
officers seized Rusty in April 2005 and determined he was a pit bull-
type dog, liable for destruction. Mr. De Fre immediately appealed the
council ruling and the case was twice deferred. The council revoked
its destruction order after DNA testing traced Rusty to his mother
Peggy and concluded he was a Staffordshire terrier cross. ↓
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