False Dog Bite Claim Against Us? Is There Anything We Can Do?

Location: Southern Ontario, Canada.

Our dog is a male cane corso. At the time of the incident (a couple months ago) he was 15 months old and already weighed 135 pounds.

Our family of 4 (myself, my husband and kids, ages 11 and 8) stay seasonally at a trailer park that is open from may to October. We sign a contract every year, and in that contract it does say the park manager can evict pets at their discretion.

Onto the incident. I had our dog at an event, as did other people. One child asked to pet my dog, I said yes because he’s is very friendly and has been socialized since we got him. He ended up giving this kid a warning, barked a couple times and jumped up. I got control right away and got him down on all four legs. There was a face to face collision with the child (I’m guessing around 10 years old) so the child did get a split lip. I apologized to the mother, told her that our dog is up to date on his vaccines and thought that was the end of it.

Next day we get a call from our local health unit. The mother claimed it was a bite. I don’t disagree that the child was injured, but nobody has shown us proof of a bite. Just the mother claiming it was. Health unit dismissed our case after a couple days. We thought all was good after that.

I was wrong. We next heard from our local animal control asking about our dog and the “bite”. Once he heard it was a cane corso, and looked at the photo of the child after the incident, he told us that child did not get bit. We didn’t even get a fine. Case closed. His opinion didn’t matter though, our trailer park manager evicted our dog permanently from the park.

Unhappy with that decision, my husband and I reached out to the ethical hotline that owns our park to report how our manager reacted to this incident. It’s supposed to be anonymous and they should investigate. The person at the ethical hotline who received our claim went directly to our accuser (the park manager) and only got his side of the story. No investigation happened, and our dog is still banned.

The hotline operator breached protocol and forwarded my private complaint directly to the local park manager. This severe breach of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) has me now wondering what my options are. I can provide eye witness accounts that it was not a bite. I have both the health unit and animal control saying it was not a bite. I just want my dog back, and I want his (and my to be honest) reputation restored. He is not aggressive, what happened is unfortunate and I’m upset a child did get hurt. If he was aggressive, we wouldn’t have him with 2 young children of our own. He’s family, and I want to fight for him. Is this something worth fighting for?!