By VDC staff

After two recent fatal dog attacks, the Waitsfield Select Board is reminding residents and visitors that dogs must be physically leashed on public property, the Valley Reporter, the weekly newspaper for the Mad River Valley, reported August 13. 

The warning follows an Aug. 7 attack at the former town fairgrounds, where a loose husky-type dog attacked a herd of goats being used to control invasive knotweed. Two goats were euthanized that evening and a third, found the following day after the herd scattered, was also euthanized because of its injuries. The dog involved remains unaccounted for.

The Valley Reporter relays a first-person account of the goat killings.

The incident came less than three weeks after an unleashed dog killed Moretown resident Dan Zucker’s miniature poodle on the Mad River Greenway. That dog also has not been accounted for.

Select Board Chair Brian Shupe said Waitsfield amended its dog ordinance in May, replacing a requirement that dogs be “under the control” of their owners with a requirement that they be physically restrained by a leash on public property.

The attacks have also affected use of public trails. Representatives of Neck of the Woods childcare center told the board they have stopped taking children on the Greenway because of repeated encounters with loose dogs.

“We’ve had dogs rush us almost every single time they’re on the trail,” Larissa Darius told the board.

The town is continuing to investigate the goat attack and plans additional public education, updated trail signs and increased enforcement of the leash requirement.