Dog Law

Location: Batavia, IL (Chicago Western Suburbs)

I was bitten by a dog at work on Tuesday. I do not work with animals, the CEO and his wife (my boss) bring their 3 dogs to work with them every day. One of them is an intact male Boerboel (South African Mastiff). This dog commonly growls at people he doesn’t know and is always kept on leash or in CEO’s office.

I’ve been working here for 8 months and it’s been a long time since he’s growled at me. I’ve never gone near him to pet him. On Tuesday, CEO was handing something to the other person I share an office with and had the dog on a leash with him. The dog pulled CEO towards me, and without any warning grabbed my arm. Fortunately he released quickly and was dragged out growling.

My injury is pretty minor. Some superficial cuts, no blood drawn, but significant bruising is probably in my future. I went Wednesday to the doctor and got an updated Tetanus shot and even she didn’t think I would need antibiotics but to come back if things change.

My concern now is preventing this from happening in the future. The owners seem to think everything will go back to normal and it’s like nothing ever happened. I personally think the dog should be neutered and forced to be muzzled if they continue to insist on bringing him into a public office every day. He has gotten away from them before and bit a service technician and has supposedly bit another coworker at some point (HR had told me I was the first she’s done a claim for so it may have been a while).

Is something like this worth a legal consultation? I have thought about animal control but I don’t like the idea of them forcibly removing the dog from its home and potentially putting it down even if it’s warranted. An HR claim is on the record and I have a picture of the bite after it happened. I just want them to understand how serious this is and just how easily it could happen again.

Apologies if I rambled. Let me know if you need more details.