{"id":45808,"date":"2021-07-12T22:38:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T04:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/owner-of-dog-who-bit-pedestrian-pleads-guilty\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:27:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:27:27","slug":"owner-of-dog-who-bit-pedestrian-pleads-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/owner-of-dog-who-bit-pedestrian-pleads-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"Owner of dog who bit pedestrian pleads guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

A woman whose dog bit a pedestrian on Montezuma Avenue in May has pleaded guilty to the charge of keeping a vicious animal.<\/p>\n

Gabrielle Wolf entered the guilty plea Monday in Cortez Municipal Court. As part of her sentence, she was ordered to pay restitution to the victim in the amount of $1,195 to cover medical costs.<\/p>\n

Additional fines will be dropped if no similar offenses occur in the next year, said Cortez prosecutor Drew Buffington.<\/p>\n

During the hearing, Buffington told Cortez Municipal Court Judge James Shaner that the dog that bit the victim has successfully completed a weeklong class with a professional trainer.<\/p>\n

Wolf previously pleaded guilty to maintenance of an animal that disturbs the peace and allowing it to run at large.<\/p>\n

As part of the sentence for all citations, the fines were suspended if no similar offenses occurred in the next year. A citation for having an unlicensed dog was dropped after proof of license was provided.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take these cases seriously because it is important to look out for the safety of members of the community,\u201d Buffington told The Journal <\/em> after the hearing.<\/p>\n

According to a police incident report, Cortez resident Sharon Peterson, 60, was walking near the 40 block of West Montezuma Avenue on the morning of May 7 when the two barking dogs approached her from behind. One of the dogs bit her on the back after she fell on the ground.<\/p>\n

A passing motorist, David Christian, stopped his vehicle in the road, yelled at the dogs and helped Peterson into his car. She was later provided medical treatment.<\/p>\n

Before the court hearing, Peterson told The Journal <\/em> she was healing from the physical injuries, and said the incident caused ongoing mental anguish as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very scary,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She urged the public to be responsible and control their dogs.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany others walk that area, including children. They deserve to be safe,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cDog owners need to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experience will not stop her from taking her daily walks, Peterson said, and she now carries Mace and a golf club for protection.<\/p>\n

Monique Wolf is the owner of the other dog involved, which reportedly barked at the victim and did not bite her. Wolf pleaded guilty to the dog-at-large charge, and fines were suspended if no similar offenses occur in the next year.<\/p>\n

A citation for having an unlicensed dog was dropped after proof of license was provided.<\/p>\n

After the hearing, Gabrielle Wolf said the dog, which is a puppy, did well in the training class and benefited from socializing with the 15 other people and dogs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the best in the class, and I will continue to work with him,\u201d Wolf said.<\/p>\n

She learned that training a dog requires a mix of discipline and positive reinforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be more stern, not all praise,\u201d Wolf said.<\/p>\n

The gate from the yard where the dogs escaped has been secured, the Wolfs said. During a previous court hearing, the Wolfs apologized to the victim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Restitution paid to cover victim\u2019s medical costs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[382,21,168,28,1531,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-45808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-animal","tag-cortez","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-injury","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86642,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45808\/revisions\/86642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45808"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=45808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}