Dangerous Dog Taken From County Shelter

Someone broke into the Spokane County Animal Shelter over the weekend to bust out Baby - a male German shepherd doing time for biting a sheriff’s deputy., The dog was liberated from the shelter at 2521 N. Flora either late Friday or early Saturday, said Nancy Sattin, county animal control director.

The dognapper knew what he was after and came prepared for the job, Sattin said.

The thief used a bolt cutter to create a hole in the shelter’s perimeter fence, cut a padlock off the dangerous-dog kennel and pried open Baby’s pen with a crowbar, she said.

Nothing else was touched.

“That’s the only thing we’re missing - one dangerous dog,” she said.

Baby’s owner, Donald Boe, is the chief suspect, Sattin said.

It’s unlikely the dog would have gone willingly with anyone it didn’t know, she said.

Efforts to reach Boe, who deputies say has no known address, were unsuccessful.

A search for both Boe and the dog is under way in two counties, Sattin said.

Deputies in Grant County were looking for the pair at the home of Boe’s father there, she said, and Spokane County officials were on the lookout as well.

The person who snatched the dog likely will face felony trespass and theft charges, said Sgt. Pat Vanwert of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department.

Baby was being held at the shelter because County Commissioner Steve Hasson deemed him dangerous last month. Hasson made his ruling after Baby attacked sheriff’s Sgt. George Wigen in December.

Wigen was searching a suspected methamphetamine laboratory in the Valley when Baby reportedly broke free from a leash and ripped through the deputy’s clothes, tearing gashes in his left thigh and arm.

On another occasion, the dog reportedly knocked an 11-year-old girl to the ground and bit her several times.

Boe defended Baby at the hearing before Hasson. “He wasn’t raised to be vicious. He’s just protective,” Boe said then.

Baby’s disappearance has Sattin considering installing an electronic security system at the shelter. She already has moved another dangerous dog - whose owner threatened shelter workers - to a secret location.

“It’s crazy,” Sattin said.

, DataTimes