Saturday August 20, 2022, a resident of Poitiers, in her seventies, was walking in the city center when she was attacked by a dog, for no reason. She recounts her attack.
It is around 5 p.m., Saturday August 20, when this septuagnar begins the descent of the rue des Grandes-coles to reach the Cordeliers shopping center. A Saturday as usual with people in this street. Nothing more. Nothing lessshe says, still in shock. At the Café de la Paix, I meet a homeless man with his two dogs. One on a leash, the other not. I don’t have time for anything but the off-leash one attacks my hand, I scream in pain.
I would like the municipality to enforce
the law in force
The dog sank three fangs into his right hand. The septuagenarian unrolls the thread of her story: The homeless told me that he didn’t understand, that his dog had never done this… A passer-by picked me up to take me to the pharmacy on rue Magenta. He takes care of her, gives her a bandage but advises her to go to the emergency room. The clinic’s emergency physician gave me a tetanus shot. For rabies, he advised him to wait 24 hours and alert if his hand swells. Luckily, she didn’t swell. But I have been severely handicapped ever since. La Poitevine is an active retreat and all this penalizes it. The emergency doctor gave me a three-month stoppage of activity. Imagine for an employee, what this generates.
His testimony is not intended to stigmatize the homeless in question. But raise awareness about safety in the city center: I would like the municipality to enforce the law, which is clear. In town, dogs must be kept on a leash by their owners. For this, the day after his attack, the Poitevine lodged a complaint at the police station and asked the town hall to tell him about his experience. Since then, it is the ball in the belly that this inhabitant of the city center crosses Poitiers. A few days after this attack, I saw two untethered dogs. I was not serene… and I’m afraid I never will be anymore.
respite
What do the regulations say?
>Dogs of all categories.
The law is clear: Departmental health regulations provide that dogs may only travel on public roads in urban areas if they are kept on a leash. In the woods and forests, it is forbidden to walk dogs not kept on a leash outside the forest paths during the period from April 15th to June 30th.
It is forbidden to let your dog roam in cultivated or uncultivated land, meadows, vineyards, orchards, woods and in marshes and on the edge of waterways, ponds and lakes. This aims to prevent the destruction of birds and game species and encourage their repopulation.
A dog is also considered stray if it is away from its owner or the person responsible for it, by a distance exceeding 100 meters.
> So-called dangerous dogs.
Dogs likely to be dangerous are classified into two categories: attack dog (staffordshire terrier and american staffordshire terrier, commonly called pit bulls; mastiff, commonly called boer bulls; tosa), and guard and defense dog (staffordshire terrier and american staffordshire terrier; rottweiler; tosa). For these breeds, the dog must be kept on a leash and with a muzzle on public roads or in the common areas of an apartment building.
Source: service-public.fr