by Marty Green ·
Friday, July 3, 2026
At a June 24 hearing, the Select Board declared a 3-year-old German shepherd named Ranger met the legal standard of a dangerous dog, having seriously bitten a woman in May. Board members also voted to require the dog’s owners, William and Jackie Stevenson of Warren Avenue, to take a number of measures, both to keep the dog secure and to correct its behavior.
Acton resident Susan Pinsky testified she was working at the Stevensons’ house on May 2, carrying things to a storage loft in the barn. Ranger and another dog were shut in stalls in the barn. She said Ranger somehow escaped from the stall and knocked her down, biting her arms as she tried to protect her face and throat. Her skin and arm muscles were ripped, and she was bleeding profusely. Pinsky said she thinks she would have died if the owners had not heard her calls for help.
Photographs of the injuries were submitted with her complaint, and Select Board member Kara Minar called them “horrific.” The board noted Ranger had bitten Pinsky once before and had also bitten a snowplow contractor on the leg and nipped a visiting child on the hand, although no complaints had been filed in those cases.
Under Harvard’s bylaws, a dog is deemed dangerous if it attacks and injures a person or domestic animal without justification. It may also be deemed dangerous if a reasonable person would believe its behavior poses an imminent threat of such an attack.
The vote to declare the Stevensons’ dog dangerous was 4-1. Eve Wittenberg voted no on that motion, based on her experience with some difficult dogs she had owned in the past. But she later joined the other board members in a unanimous decision as to the measures the Stevensons are required to take.
Many of those measures are set by state law—Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 140, Section 157. A dog that has been declared dangerous must be muzzled and on a strong leash except when it is in the house or in a securely enclosed and locked pen. State law also requires the owners of a dangerous dog to take out an insurance policy for at least $100,000 to settle any future claims of injury by the dog.
With advice from Phyllis Tower, the animal control officer, the Select Board specified a 6-foot-high fence with a slanted overhang as the required enclosure in this case. The bottom of the fence must be buried 2 feet deep to prevent the dog from digging its way out. Other requirements specified by the board include a warning sign on the fence, a lock on any gate, and further behavioral training for Ranger. The Select Board is to receive a report on those measures in 30 days, with follow-up reports after three months and six months.