Owner To Get Dogs Back Despite Attack Otis Orchards Man Agrees To Safety Requirements

Four Saint Bernards that mauled an 11-year-old Spokane Valley girl probably will be released to their owner today, animal control officials said Friday.

Alvin Tesdal, who owns the huge canines, is close to meeting requirements that will allow him to keep the dogs on his Otis Orchards property, said Nancy Sattin, the county’s animal control director.

That includes obtaining a $200,000 insurance policy, keeping the dogs in approved kennels and muzzling the animals when they are outside their pens.

The dogs have been held at the county animal shelter since the March 2 attack. They had been scheduled to die.

The decision to give them back to Tesdal came after he agreed to abide by county laws regulating so-called “dangerous dogs,” Sattin said.

“You can keep dangerous dogs in this county,” said Sattin, who isn’t happy about turning the dogs over to Tesdal.

The news of their possible release angered the victim’s mother.

“How do I put it into words that make sense and aren’t profane?” said Marelda Abney, whose daughter Cassie Jones suffered wounds on her buttocks, arm and legs in the attack. “I think he’s insane. I’m screaming mad. I think he has no idea how much damage his dogs have done to my daughter.”

Tesdal did not want to talk about it.

“No comment anymore,” he said Friday. “I’m through talking.”

The dogs attacked the girl about 5:20 p.m. March 2 as she walked past Tesdal’s house in the 20500 block of East Wellesley. Someone had left Tesdal’s side gate open, and the dogs escaped the fence that usually contains them.

Three neighbors rescued Cassie after the dogs knocked her down and began biting her. The attack apparently was unprovoked.

The girl had surgery to repair a large wound on her buttocks. She is recovering and is expected to return to Mountain View Middle School on Monday, her mother said.

Abney said the sixth-grader was shaken when told the dogs would be returned to Tesdal, who lives about a block away.

“She started crying and hyperventilating,” Abney said. “She’s frightened and confused. This is not just a little bite that’s going to go away.”

The day after the attack, Tesdal released the dogs to the county. Sattin declared them dangerous and scheduled them to be euthanized after they were quarantined for 10 days to check for rabies.

But Tesdal changed his mind and appealed the dangerous dog designation. He said he would sell the dogs or give them away. He just didn’t want them killed, he said.

“They’re pets is all they are,” he said at the time. “I know they did wrong, but they didn’t kill anybody.”

Apparently, Tesdal changed his mind again and now plans to keep the Saint Bernards, which his family has entered in dog shows.

A hearing on the dangerous dog designation will be held March 22. As long as Tesdal meets the insurance and kennel requirements, he will be allowed to keep the dogs even if County Commissioner John Roskelley upholds the dangerous dog label, Sattin said. If Roskelley rules in favor of Tesdal, he won’t have to maintain the requirements.

The kennels must be built in a way to prevent young children from entering them and to keep the dogs from getting out.

The only way the dogs can be killed now is if a judge finds Tesdal guilty of keeping vicious dogs and orders him to have them put down.

“That rarely happens,” Sattin said.

Tesdal is charged with four counts of keeping vicious dogs and eight other misdemeanors stemming from the attack on Cassie. Roskelley’s ruling won’t affect those charges. A court date has not been set.