As 5-year-old Johnay continues to recover from Tuesday's dog attack, Detroit Police say only 9 of the 12 adult dogs believed to have been at the house have been seized. Three others are missing along with two litters of puppies, police say.
The little girl's father was visiting a friend's house on Holcomb Street when the girl went to play with the dogs and she was mauled by some of the dogs.
Police say it does not appear that the nine dogs seized by animal control were involved in the attack because no blood or human tissue was found on them.
Police sources say it's possible someone is hiding the dogs, including one dog that was involved in a previous bite case.
We're told the owner of the dogs, 48-year-old Kenneth Wiseman, was supposed to surrender that one dog but never did.
On Wednesday, 7 Action News sought information on whether animal control workers ever tried to seize the dog involved in the previous bite case when Wiseman failed to surrender it. We also wanted to know if animal control was ever aware of the number of dogs belonging to Wiseman and if he ever licensed any of the dogs.
Detroit Animal Care and Control supplied the following information:
1. State law and city ordinance declare that the owner of any animal that has bitten must report to animal control and the animal must be held for quarantine for ten days after the bite to observe for symptoms of rabies.
The owner of the dog that was bitten reported the bite to DACC. Our investigator tried to make contact with Mr. Wiseman. Dogs were heard in the house but not seen. When Mr. Wiseman failed to bring the dog in for observation, he was issued two misdemeanor tickets: one for failure to quarantine and one for failure to license, fines totaling $1000 and up to 93 days in jail. Those tickets then proceed through 36th District court. Mr. Wiseman did not appear at his hearing and warrants were issued for his arrest.
2. Attempts to get an accurate animal count were made. Recently one of our field teams was dispatched to a report at that address regarding being over the limit. Contact was made and the person at that location was given two weeks to get dogs licensed and comply w city limit. The dogs were not outside or in plain sight. 5/11 would have been the day tickets would be issued for failure to license.
3. There are no dogs licensed to either address.
4. Yes. The city limit per household is 4 dogs.
