Council denies appeal to bring dog back into city

May 5—OTTUMWA — The Ottumwa City Council, after hearing both sides of the debate, voted unanimously to deny an appeal to a family seeking to overturn an order to keep its dog out of city limits.

Yadira Kelderman, and many of her family members and friends, spoke of the playful demeanor of her dog Ody, an 80-pound Pointer/hound mix responsible for two attacks on neighbors in a seven-month period. The second attack was a bite of a 14-year-old girl, who required stitches in both her hip and hand. Both Casey and Yadira Kelderman and the victim's family live near Horace Mann Elementary School.

In the end, the council followed city code that ruled Ody to be a dangerous animal that must be kept outside city limits, which he has been since late April.

"I think it really comes down to what the code says and that's what we really need to go by in this situation," council member Doug McAntire said.

Council members also questioned how much the Keldermans did between the attacks to rehabilitate Ody and potentially prevent a second attack.

"That's basically when I began training him to obey because up until that point he was actually fairly young, and I was told that I shouldn't be training dogs that young," Yadira Kelderman said.

She asked for an opportunity to continue addressing Ody's shortcomings, and "guaranteed" professional help for the dog, as well as putting a muzzle on him when he is outside, according to an email she sent to Ottumwa police chief Chad Farrington.

"He does bark at the door and then he barks when they get too loud and rowdy," she said. "We've had numerous birthday parties for our children at our home with kids running around without any incidents. He's not what I would deem a vicious animal."

Ody was deemed a dangerous animal after an investigation by Farrington and community service officer Jeff Williams. In Williams' report of the investigation, the dog snarled at Williams when he went to the Kelderman home to observe the dog's temperament after the attack. Williams also noticed a cable to tie the dog outside was rusty.

However, perhaps the most impassioned remarks came from the girl's grandmother, Cindy Fluegge, who is a licensed social worker.

"Quite honestly, I'm scared of the dog. All of us are scared of the dog because every time we pull up to Sandy's (Fluegge, the girl's mother) house, this dog goes bonkers barking and pulling its chain," Cindy Fluegge said. "So when I heard the dog attacked, it didn't surprise me at all.

"She kept saying, 'Grandma, I can't go outside again. Why doesn't somebody kill the dog?" she added. "She asked over and over and over. She's the toughest kid you'll ever meet, but we might have lost her."

Sandy Fluegge told the police she wanted the dog removed; she had a sweatshirt torn off by the dog in September but did not report the incident to the police.

"The Keldermans and I have always had a good neighborly relationship and I hope this unfortunate event doesn't change that," she said. "My concern is that the combination of the multiple incidents of the dog getting loose, the police deeming that dog vicious and the location of our properties next to the school, with county kids walking back and forth to school, that anything short of removing the dog from the city keeps the odds of this type of incident happening again."

Galloway wondered what denying the appeal meant for the dog itself, whether it had to be put down.

"This is not the police department going to track down Ody and destroy him. That's not the purpose of the removal order," Farrington said. "I have empathy for both sides of this obviously, and none of these things are taken lightly. We do try to think outside the box and see if we can come to an agreeable situation before things like orders have to be committed to.

"But in this situation, I felt it was what was needed to rectify the situation."

Galloway said that for all of Ody's playful demeanor, there was another side to the dog the Fluegge's saw.

"We've heard a lot that Ody is not an aggressive dog, but Ody did bite and he did attack a child and the mother of the child," she said. "Maybe we see a side of an animal, but in this incident, there was another side to the animal, and that it did injure not only physically, but it sounds like emotionally and mentally as well."

— Chad Drury can be reached at cdrury@ottumwacourier.com, and on Twitter @ChadDrury