Lanesborough Board Bans Resident from Dog Ownership
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — A resident with a history of dangerous and nuisance dogs has been prohibited from owning another canine for five years.
Animal Control Officer Dale Newberry asked the Select Board on Monday to ban resident Lori Broderick from owning a dog for five years.
He explained that this is because she cannot keep control of her dogs. Broderick has a history of dangerous dogs, he said, including two pitbull mixes she had to put down in 2021 because they kept getting out and killing smaller animals like cats. In one instance, one of the dogs went into a neighbor's home and grabbed their cat.
Not long after euthanizing those dogs, she got another pitbull named Lilli who was deemed a nuisance in 2024 because of how often she got loose, though she had not attacked anyone. After deeming the dog a nuisance, Broderick was ordered to get her licensed and vaccinated, and keep her humanely restrained.
Broderick did put up a fence shortly after but Lilli still got out, Newberry said.
Last month, Lilli got out again and attacked a neighbor's cat. The cat hid under a shed for a couple days in fear and was finally taken to the veterinarian with a broken leg and other wounds. The cat is now home and recovering well, Newberry said.
Newberry acknowledged that the dogs are always healthy and taken care of but Broderick can't seem to keep them restrained on her property.
"As far as a pet owner goes, she has demonstrated several times now that she is not a responsible pet owner as far as her ability to keep these dogs confined, in spite of all the efforts," said Police Chief Rob Derksen. "I remember when I first started, we had several meetings with her with the Select Board. ... She spent a lot of money on fencing, and she met all the criteria that the Select Board gave, except the dog was constantly getting out the front door, and she would blame the kids coming and going and letting the dog out, or dogs at that time, and they were killing all their pets. ...
"For a long time, she maintained she was not the owner of the dog. The dog was just staying there temporarily. But obviously, after two years … and then she would maintain that her son was the owner of the dog, and then her son would maintain she was the owner of the dog, and it just kept going back and forth."
Newberry said Broderick could not show licensing or vaccination records and that this has been an ongoing situation.
"With this situation, the dog actually went missing for a time period because she knew that I was coming. I was going to come for the dog, so she kind of took it and hid it in another residence, and then it pops back up back last month," he said.
He helped Broderick voluntarily surrender the dog to the Berkshire Humane Society.
"It took a lot of talking for her to understand that she surrendered the dog. The dog just doesn't get along with small animals, but may be suitable for another home somewhere," Newberry said. "She had an open door to give the dog a better home by surrendering it to the Humane Society, and I walked her through that process because it was kind of more maybe confusion on her part, just not be able to answer all the questions the proper way, but I would like the board to extend that to a five-year period with her, and send her an official notice of that, and we'll go from there to try to manage that situation."
The board voted to ban her from owning a dog for five years. Broderick was not in attendance but will receive a formal letter and a visit from Newberry explaining the prohibition.
In other news, Derksen and Newberry discussed a new contract with the Berkshire Humane Society to house stray dogs. The town previously had a contract with the now closed Eleanor Sonsini Animal Shelter in Pittsfield.
He said it is rare they have a dog that needs to be housed longer than a few days but it does happen. With the Humane Society, if the dog goes unclaimed for a certain amount of time, it can be put it up for adoption.
"If we had a true stray dog that we had no leads on the ownet, the Humane Society really is the only place that we currently have access to that would have a mechanism to adopt the dog," the chief said.
The contract Derksen brought to the board is for $40 a day, which goes to 10 days if not claimed.
"The Humane Society has been very accommodating to us when things have arisen without a contract, but they've really pushed us for the last several years that they really need us to enter the contract, and we try to exhaust any and all other possibilities," he said. "In fact, Chief [Deanna] Strout from Dalton and I had met with the Humane Society to try to work something out, and like I said, this was his proposal as a result of that meeting.
"And according to what I was told, was Dalton had to sign that contract because, like I said, we just right now we don't have very many options in Berkshire County. They've helped us with cases where we've had to euthanize dogs. They've assisted us, but they're kind of at their limit where they said we really have to have a contract legally in order to continue to assist us."
The contract also states officers can only drop off dogs within the shelter's business hours, though it can be hard for the department to house a dog overnight. The town does have an agreement with the Adams animal control officer to house dogs overnight but Newberry would have to bring it to the kennel and care and clean up after the animal.
"Ninety-nine percent of our dogs that go missing in town, somebody knows the owner. Our social media does a great job with the hometown and with the animal control," Newberry said.
The board approved the contract with Derksen signing off on it.
Tags: dogs,
