From left: Mark Saganich, Paul Willard, and Sandy Lefkovits listen to the state dog laws at the Feb. 4 Board of Selectmen’s meeting. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
At their first dog hearing since 2011, the selectmen declared two dogs owned by Mark Saganich of Depot Road to be “dangerous” and ordered them confined to the owner’s property.
The vote was 3-2, with selectmen Stu Sklar and Leo Blair opposed. The 45-minute hearing was in response to a complaint by Depot Road resident Sandra Lefkovits about an incident on Jan. 6, when she found her flock of chickens dead and two dogs belonging to Saganich at their coop.
‘This is very painful’
As the hearing convened shortly after 7 p.m., Chairwoman Marie Sobalvarro asked Lefkovits and Saganich, also of Depot Road, to sit at the table. Paul Willard, animal control officer, was seated between them. Sobalvarro said it was presumed that all would tell “the truth and the absolute truth.”
Willard testified first, recounting that he had gone to the Lefkovits home on Jan. 6, after getting a message from the dispatcher about the killings. “Sure enough,” Willard said, “there were a lot of dead chickens and two Brittanys” in the coop. Willard said he knew the dogs belonged to Saganich, and he immediately wrote an order restraining them to Saganich’s property. He left the dogs in the coop, where Lefkovits had confined them after discovering the slaughter.
Sobalvarro then asked Lefkovits for her account of the events. Lefkovits said she would read a statement she had already sent the selectmen.
“This is very painful for me,” she said, and Willard considerately offered to read it on her behalf. Lefkovits’ summary focused on the brief period—no more than 20 minutes—between the time she fed the chickens, leaving them alive and well, and the time she found them dead, with the two dogs among them.
“If I had been five minutes earlier, I might have saved the chickens,” Lefkovits wrote. “If I had been five minutes later, the dogs may have been gone. There is no doubt in my mind that the dogs killed the chickens.”
‘I don’t see it the same way’
Sobalvarro turned to Mark Saganich and asked for his version of events. Saganich called the incident “really unfortunate,” but said to Lefkovits, “I don’t see it the same way you do.”
Saganich said that it had taken him two hours to find out where his dogs were confined and that the chickens were already dead when Willard arrived. When he came to pick up his dogs, Saganich went on, there was a hole in the coop, and some of the dead chickens were outside the coop. He suggested that Lefkovits had let her chickens out or left the coop open.
“I don’t know what happened with your chickens,” Saganich said. “I don’t believe it was my dogs. They don’t have a history of doing anything like this … No one can tell me they saw my dogs kill a single chicken.”
Lefkovits responded that the dogs had broken into the coop, digging at the base of the chicken wire and pulling it away from the wooden frame. A few chickens had then run outside through the hole, she said, fleeing the dogs.
A history of previous incidents
Sobalvarro asked Willard if these dogs had been cited for previous incidents, and Willard said they had. Sobalvarro then asked if there was any other testimony.
Glenn Alexander of Ayer Road and Lynn Cooke of Depot Road both rose to say that the same dogs had come after their chickens more than once in the past. Alexander said he had chased them away. Cook said she had seen the dogs kill one of her chickens last summer and that she had told Saganich about it.
Connie Larrabee of Under Pin Hill Road said she often bought eggs from Lefkovits and knew the chicken pen was sturdy and secure. “Those chickens never were out of that pen,” she said.
Selectmen left with few options
Sobalvarro said that Harvard’s existing bylaws allow the selectmen to levy only a minimal fine for the chicken killings. Their options under state law are two: to restrict the dogs to the owner’s property, or to advocate that they be euthanized. Banishing dogs is no longer an option, she said.
On the general issue that the dogs should be confined, all five selectmen initially seemed to be in agreement. But disagreement arose when Town Administrator Tim Bragan pointed out that the state law required them either to declare that the dogs are dangerous or a nuisance or to dismiss the complaint.
If a dog is declared a nuisance, Bragan said, the owner is asked to “ameliorate” the nuisance, such as barking. Only dogs that have been declared dangerous can be confined to the owner’s property, in a pen that meets very strict standards, including a roof and a floor or fencing sunk deep into the ground. The law does not distinguish between dogs that pose a danger to humans and those that are dangerous to livestock, Bragan said.
“I’m a law-abiding guy, but that’s crazy,” Selectman Leo Blair objected. He proposed holding off on a decision until the board could look further into the legal issues.
Three motions and a finding
Selectwoman Lucy Wallace countered that the matter should be resolved that evening, because the full board would not be present at the next meeting. She moved that the dogs be found dangerous. Her motion was defeated 3-2, with selectmen Blair, Ron Ricci, and Stu Sklar opposing it. Ricci said he wanted a clear order that the dogs be confined as part of in the motion. He said he was less concerned about what the dogs were labeled.
Blair then moved that the dogs be declared a nuisance, and Sklar seconded the motion. But when Bragan said that calling them a nuisance would not require the dogs to be confined, all five selectmen rejected that motion.
The third try was the charm. Ricci moved that the dogs be found dangerous and be confined to the owner’s property, with a secure fence as specified by state law. The motion also directed Willard, as animal control officer, to verify that the fence met the necessary standards. Ricci’s motion passed 3-2, with Sklar and Blair opposed.
