Tragic mauling deaths are unfortunately not uncommon. However, Tracy Garcia, 52, was initially listed as the victim of a pack of pit bulls in Ardmore, Oklahoma. It turned out that it was actually a pack of dachshunds, or wiener dogs. Police are now considering charges against their owner.
The dogs were all below the height of her knee and the pack was composed of three females and four males ranging in age from about 1 to 3 years old.
Police shot one dog which appeared aggressive and then euthanized six others.
Garcia’s husband died in 2006 but she is survived by two children, a son and a daughter, and two sisters.
It is often said the every dog get one free bite in American torts. However, the “one free bite rule” is a commonly misunderstood torts doctrine — suggesting that you are not subject to strict liability until after the first time your dog bites someone. In fact, you are subject to strict liability whenever you know or have reason to know of the vicious propensity of your animal. That can be satisfied by conduct such as frequent snapping or aggressive behavior. Indeed, that was the evidence used in the famous case from San Francisco involving lawyers and dog owners Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel. They were found both criminally and civilly liable after their two Presa Canario dogs killed apartment neighbor Diane Whipple. Various neighbors complained about the dogs, which the couple inherited from a convict. Paul “Cornfed” Schneider is a reputed member of the Aryan Brotherhood and was planning a guard-dog business to be called “Dog-O-War.” Three days after Whipple’s death, the couple adopted Schneider as their son. The dogs had not bitten anyone but were known to be aggressive.
However, these are wiener dogs. For civil liability, there would have to be a showing of knowledge of viciousness. That may be possible if the dogs were allowed to roam wild, particularly if there were earlier complaints. There can also be criminal liability.
Oklahoma has codified the strict liability elements of the common law. Oklahoma has a specific law that addresses dog bites and other injuries caused by dogs. Oklahoma Statutes Section 4-42.1 states that a dog’s owner is liable for damages when a dog attacked a person who did not provoke the animal and the victim was in a place where he or she had a lawful right to be.
That would seem to fit the description of this case.
JT doesn’t have much of an understanding of prison life. He cites to the fact that a white guy was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood while in prison. First, ALL prison gangs are based on race. And the AB is the only gang for whites. So you either join the AB to get protection, or you go it alone. Maybe if JT ever goes to prison he can try to start an inclusive, multi-racial, culturally sensitive gang. Good luck with that. But in the meanwhile, if you go to prison, you had better hope that you can be accepted by a gang, or you will otherwise be bait for every predator, of which their are many. Not everyone is acceptable to the gangs. No sex offenders or gays or girly men. So if someone is a member of the AB on the outside, you can draw negative inferences. But a white guy joining the AB while in prison just means that he was trying to survive.
Fake news.
http://www.animals24-7.org/2018/05/17/how-tabloids-turned-the-pits-who-killed-tracy-garcia-into-dachshunds/
IDrink – thanks for the link and update. 🙂 Have a great weekend.
@Michael Aarethun May 18, 2018 at 2:29 AM
“Reminds me of Heinleins comment on juvenile delinquents under the heading of why do we treat our dogs better than our children. I can almost quote it exactly. ‘There is no such thing as a juvenile delinquent. Being delinquent in one’s duty is an adult trait not expected of children. But for every child in trouble there is one or adult delinquents who failed in their duty.’ Not exact and someone may have the actual close at hand..”
According to this source, your paraphrasing is pretty close:
“I told you that ‘juvenile delinquent’ is a contradiction in terms. ‘Delinquent’ means ‘failing in duty.’ But duty is an adult virtue—indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be a ‘juvenile delinquent.’ But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents—people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/880894-i-told-you-that-juvenile-delinquent-is-a-contradiction-in
It is about time that we have a national Dachshund registry, require prospective owners to go through a background check, and establish a 7 day waiting period. Further, we should surgical alter automatic, rapid bark dogs so that they can only bark once per second.
FWIW In Germany dachshunds are still used as hunting dogs. That poor woman – a good argument for carrying a gun IMO.
Idiot.
No, YOU are an idiot. My bro in law last week was walking his Yorkie and a pit bull came out of nowhere – he lifted his dog up above his head hoping to save it and another pit bull came out – they knocked him down, killed his dog and he had to have major surgery on his arm. He is a former state trooper and carries normally but I guess he thought walking around his own damn neighborhood was safe. Those dogs need to be put down and the owner should be in jail.
I get that dachshunds can hunt animals lying on the ground in burrows, but how do they attack and kill an am?bulatory human? Couldn’t you just stomp the hell out of the first one who attacks you? Then continue stomping and kicking as they leap up to bite your knees? How do they even get to your jugular? Can a human not outrun a Weiner dog? I need more info!
These appear to have been mixed breeds. A heavy bodied dog can knock you over and inflict a bite right away that will keep you down, regardless of how short his legs are. For example, a pack of 7 Staffordshires could do a lot of damage, even though they are not very tall. Dachshunds are also very fast. You might be thinking of teacup or mini Dachshunds. Standard Dachshunds can be just over 30 pounds. A mixed breed could weigh more than that.
There were 7 dogs in the pack. Whatever they were mixed with, the attending vet thought they might be Pit Bull mixes. That is in dispute, and they claim that they were terrier mixes. What kind of terrier? Staffordshire? Even if it was not a Staffordshire terrier mix, the breed is a good example of how strong a dangerous a short dog can be. Bully breeds can be great dogs, but they need proper training. Again, I have no idea what breeds were part of this mix besides the identified Dachshund.
You gave an excellent response and you are dog knowledgable. I’ve raised and shown Great Danes for 52 years. I have never had a dog bite issue BUT have adhered to very strict rules with my Danes avoiding the possibilities of sad and dangerous events with strangers and novice owners. I do not allow my dogs to “greet” visitors at the front door. Guests are NEVER allowed to enter a room that my dogs hang out in. If I know a person has a dog aversion, they are NEVER allowed to even see my Danes. Dogs are animals…creatures and many of them have very protective instincts regarding their families, their homes and their yards. Too many dogs are euthanized annually in America because of owners who do not have common sense in how to protect and train their animals. Of course, we are not surprised because there are an abundance of Americans who should NEVER have children for the very same reasons. ALL Dogs bite given the right provocation and a pack mentality almost never fails to get them there.
Any dogs in a pack are dangerous and should be avoided. Sorry for the poor woman. This deserves an investigation.
A hunting dog bred for their ability to get into small tunnel like spaces.
Ed McMahon says: You, too, can be a wiener.
From the article to which your story linked, the veterinarian guessed that the dogs in question were a mix of pit bull and Dachshund, or some other breed with short legs. That is in dispute.
However, even if they were papered, purebred Dachshunds, they were standard size, not miniature. The Dachshund means “badger dog.” The breed was developed to go into the den of vicious badgers and flush or drag them out, or even engage them in close quarters. That is why they have short legs in relation to their bodies – so they can get prey that has gone to ground. They can be fearless dogs, with a very strong predator drive. I have known many Dachshunds, and Dachshund mixes, all universally sweet. But they all had a very strong hunting instinct. Even the minis would take off like a shot after rabbits and ground squirrels. They are members of the hunting hound group. If these dogs were mixed breed, and that strong hunting instinct was crossed with another breed that also had a strong predator or fighting drive, that could create a troublesome feral pack.
Any dog who goes feral can become dangerous, especially if they live in a pack. They lack the wariness of humans that a wild animal would have. I have a friend who owns a ranch who has had several different packs of feral dogs go after his horses, even his stallion.
Even though these were short dogs, they would still have strong bodies. A pack of feral dogs is no joke. It does not sound like these were pure Dachshunds, but they sure were not teacup Chihuahuas.
I am very sorry that this woman died in such a terrifying and painful way. When people fail to care for their dogs, and dump them in the woods, it does a disservice to them, and every person and livestock they will come across.
@Karen S May 18, 2018 at 1:28 AM
“A pack of feral dogs is no joke.”
I can attest to that. I was walking home from work in a small town one summer evening and suddenly found myself surrounded by a pack of mixed-breed dogs. They encircled me at a distance of about five feet or so and were growling and snarling in that guttural low-pitched way that raises the hair on the back of your neck when it’s just one dog who’s focused on you. In this case, there were six of them, and I knew I was in serious danger of being bitten by one or more of them.
When one of them would slowly advance on me in a semi-crouch, I would turn to face it and say, as calmly and soothingly as I could, without making eye-contact, “It’s OK, it’s OK, you’re alright, that’s a good puppy, you’re OK, and it would relax a little and stop advancing. Then I’d hear another one getting closer and I’d turn to address it in the same way. I had to do that with all six dogs, while slowly moving ahead on the sidewalk, until two of them “broke ranks” and let me slowly proceed up the sidewalk out of the circle, and they then left together down the sidewalk, in the opposite direction.
I remember shivering once as I continued toward home, as my body expressed its relief that it was still in one piece. During the time they had me surrounded, I’d made every effort to conceal my fear, and think that between that and my talking with them calmly and in a friendly way, conveying that I meant them no harm, they decided not to attack.
I’ve been a dog lover for as long as I can remember, feeling a kinship with them that goes beyond my sympathetic feeling for most other animals, and I think my being able to communicate that to those feral dogs was what kept me from serious injury that day.
I’ve encountered only one dog I was unable to develop rapport with, including with dogs who were uniformly hostile to men, a male Russian Wolfhound that belonged to a woman I’d recently met. I was sitting on her living room couch when the dog came into the room and quickly positioned his face about a foot and a half from mine and level with it, growling in that guttural, menacing way a hostile dog does, and although I think I talked him out of biting me, I asked her to intervene by pulling him back away from me by his collar, and putting him in another room. She told me a month or so later that she’d had to have him euthanized after he attacked a mail carrier, knocking him face down from behind on the sidewalk, being deterred in his attack only by the pepper spray he carried.
And speaking of pepper spray, I carry a can of it when I take my small dog for a walk in our neighborhood, so as to reduce our risk of injury from a large dog or dogs who can come out of nowhere, and if aggressive enough, and unreceptive to friendly overtures, can potentially inflict the kind of injury (or worse) described by JT and several commenters above.
So that’s my shaggy dogs story. 🙂
Ken: My Dad was mauled by a Russian Wolfhound as a child, which instilled a lifelong distrust of dogs. He was on his way from school and running across a wheat field when attacked. Fortunately two farmers with pitch forks saw the attack and were able to fight off the dog and save my Dad’s life. Your suggestion of carrying pepper spray is a good idea!
Considering dachshunds were in centuries past used as pack hunting dogs, that we find them in this occasion using the same strategy against this victim it isn’t outside possibility.
We’re all aware of how here in the US view dachshunds / wiener dogs as rather wimpy dogs in comparison to other large breeds, but we should remind ourselves these are animals and all animals are capable of harm in one way or another.
I hope and pray no dog ever bites me (again), and that even 7 wiener dogs shall not prevail over me. If the wiener dogs prevailed over me, I’ll give you good odds their owner shall be prohibited from reassembling the parts of at least 2 of his/her wiener dogs, hopefully more like all 7.
Keyboard warrior, reporting for duty, after the fact as usual.
Edited 4 Sensors:
There are no Bad Dogs, Only Bad Owners!!!
Maybe tomorrow I’ll have the time to look into this story.
Now on about this old story of Doomestic Enemies of the USA, Treeason,Seedition, Espioonage, Obstruuction of Justice by the DNCc, Clintonss, Bushss’ Obamaa & his DOJj, FBIi & other Inteel, Etc….,
If there are no Orange jump suits, Hand Cuffs soon for these Treeasonous basstards the public will soon see their only options is to gum them down in the street.
Hey, I think they need a Fair Trial!!!
We’ll see?
Reminds me of Heinleins comment on juvenile delinquents under the heading of why do we treat our dogs better than our children. I can almost quote it exactly. “There is no such thing as a juvenile delinquent. Being delinquent in one’s duty is an adult trait not expected of children. But for every child in trouble there is one or adult delinquents who failed in their duty.” Not exact and someone may have the actual close at hand I’m now in a period of high winds and intermittent wifi service so beg forgiveness for failing in my duty to provide an exact quote and reference.
Dachshunds are prone to aggressive and even violent actions. But their short stature prevents them from being lumped in with, say, Dobermans or Pit Bulls. This case may change that.