Any retail storefront business that allows its customers to tie up their dogs outside the entrance door risk injury suit and damages if the dogs bites one of their customers. Peterson Law Offices, through its lead lawyer Todd Peterson, will bring a claim for injuries damages and scarring as result of a Starbucks customer getting bitten by another customer’s dog.

Todd Peterson says his client suffered scaring to her body and Starbucks is responsible because they have long allowed its customers to tie up their dogs outside their storefronts. Peterson says a multi-million dollar grossing business like Starbucks can certainly foresee potential injury to its patrons by letting their customers keep their dogs outside the doors. They have long catered to their dog loving clientele who come in for coffee while putting the rest of the public at risk of getting bitten.

Peterson says unattended dog are illegal and Starbucks knows this and has long accommodated the dog owners while leaving the rest of the public at risk. Peterson also notes that he is looking for Starbucks to warn dog owners not to tie their pets up outside their stores and this company needs to be held accountable for long tolerating the risk to the greater public at large. He also puts in dogs bite annually some five million people per year.

Dog bite injuries from Wolfdogs in the state of Oregon and Washington occur with more frequency than you might think and perhaps it’s the fact that non wolf related breds have different temperament needs than these type of dogs.

“The physical characteristics of an animal created by breeding a wolf to a dog are not predictable, similar to that of mixed-breed dogs. In many cases the resulting adult wolfdog may be larger than either of its parents due to the genetic phenomenon of heterosis (known to laypersons as hybrid vigor). Hybrids display a wide variety of appearances, ranging from a resemblance to dogs without wolf blood to animals that are often mistaken for full-blooded wolves. A lengthy study by DEFRA and the RSPCA found several examples of misrepresentation by breeders and indeterminate levels of actual wolf pedigree in many animals sold as wolfdogs. The report noted that uneducated citizens misidentify dogs with wolf-like appearance as wolfdogs.”

The above is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfdog

I often get an expert involved to evaluate the dog’s behavior and evaluate the facts to get the biggest money injury settlement for a dog bite. Today I was just consulted about a wolf bred attack in Oregon by an out of state lawyer and it brought to mind the thought that such dogs need to be treated differently and the owners must assume responsibility for any injury including scaring which occurs. In most cases involving dog or animal bites if the animal is wild perhaps like a wolfdog hybrid there is strict liability implication and prior propensity won’t need to be shown. Each year there are nationwide over nearly five million dog bites