Undeserved jail time in Tonawanda raises concerns of authoritative decisions

TOWN OF TONAWANDA - The recent jail time served by an elderly woman who resides in the Town of Tonawanda, because her dogs were barking and it began to effect her neighbors, might seem to be a fair punishment for those who participated in making the phone calls to the town police and possibly the dog warden as well.

However, for those of us who aren’t her neighbors this punishment seems a bit harsh.

Some neighbors this woman has. If I had to guess, they probably giggled a little after they heard the news of her receiving jail time. It would have been great to be a fly on the wall during the night she spent in jail, while her daughter was watching the dogs. Did they bark that night?

In case this woman’s neighbors were unaware of what a dog is and how it communicates - they bark. Almost all dogs, unless they are impaired in some way, bark.

What purpose did mandating this woman to serve jail time serve? Are her dogs still barking?

Most likely they are.

The worst part is, we’ve recently heard from SPCA’s in Erie, Niagara and Wyoming County about how badly animals (including dogs) need to be adopted and need someone to love them. This woman, owns a dog and because she can’t control their barking she gets thrown in jail.

I hope those neighbors of hers take a long hard look in the mirror and reconsider how cruel it is to continuously call and complain about their neighbor, so much so that it makes an elderly woman spend a night in a cold, damp cell, lonely, and sad. That woman felt that way for the evening as a result of bullying.

Bullying by both her neighbors, the police department and any other party that took part in this and somehow how decided this was the best solution.

Clearly the Town of Tonawanda took every other measure possible, before they locked her up for the night, to get her to comply with finding a way to make the dogs start barking. There is no doubt they exercised all their outlets and resources in order to get this under control. Yet, its still hard to believe this punishment had the effect they were hoping it would.

What’s next? Will they authorize the dogs be put down?

Maybe then her neighbors will be satisfied.

This solution was not the right choice. It was cruel and just plain mean. Worst of all, it was adults that made this decision. Maybe her neighbors could have pooled some money together to get a dog trainer to teach her dogs obedience, or offered to let the dogs out or feed them if she wasn’t going to be home. Maybe they could have and should have been a bit more neighborly throughout the whole situation.