Latest news with #AmericanPitbull
Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Health
- Hindustan Times
Chandigarh MC gets more teeth with pet dog bylaws
Looking to tighten the leash on irresponsible pet ownership, the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation on Tuesday approved the final draft of the Pet and Community Dogs Bylaws, 2025, during the House meeting. The new rules will replace the decade-old 2010 bylaws. The final approval rests with the Chandigarh administration and once the bylaws are notified, fines for violations could shoot up by as much as 200 times. The bylaws place clear liability on pet owners for bites or damage to property. They bar pet dogs from high-footfall public green spaces, such as Sukhna Lake, Rock Garden, Rose Garden and Leisure Valley. However, regular parks will remain accessible to pets — provided owners carry poop bags and clean up after their dogs. Defecation anywhere in public will be prohibited — owners must either clean up after their pets or guide them to isolated spots. Seven ferocious dog breeds will be banned: American Bulldog, American Pitbull/Pitbull Terrier, Bull Terrier, Pakistan Bull Terrier, Cane Corso, Dogo Argentino and Rottweiler. Residents already owning these banned breeds will be given a 45-day buffer period to register their dogs after notification of bylaws. Failure to comply will lead to penalties and possible impoundment. To ensure public safety, the draft mandates that all dogs be leashed in public and aggressive breeds must be muzzled. Escorts of such breeds must carry a stick, and in case of severe aggression or damage, dogs may be seized and penalties imposed. In a move to prevent public health hazards, owners will no longer be allowed to dispose of deceased pets in garbage bins. Cremation or private burial will be mandatory. The draft also proposes a complete ban on commercial breeding or trading of dogs within city limits. Prepared with input from the MC joint commissioner-1, medical officer of health and other civic officials, the draft aims to strike a balance between animal welfare and public safety. Owner to pay if dog bites, registration must Pet owners must register their dogs with MC. A registration fee of ₹500 per dog will be applicable, and renewal will be required after five years. Adopted stray dogs can be registered for ₹50. Visually impaired individuals who keep a dog for assistance will be exempt from the registration fee. It will be mandatory for registered dogs to wear a metal token and collar. If any unregistered dog is found in a house or roaming on the streets, it will be impounded by MC. A fine will also be imposed on the owner. If a pet dog bites or causes harm, owners will have to compensate the victims, in addition to legal action under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita or other laws. The owner must keep the dog under control at all times. While outside, it must always be on a leash. If a dog defecates in public, the owner must clean up properly. Failure to do so will result in a fine of up to ₹10,000. In case of violations, a fine ranging between ₹200 and ₹10,000 will be imposed, compared to ₹500 currently. After more than four challans, the dog will be impounded. Continued non-compliance will attract a fine of ₹200 per day for up to 10 days. If the dog is seized, the owner will also have to pay ₹200 per day for its upkeep. If the dog is not claimed even after 10 days and no request for its release is made within 7 days, the registration will be cancelled and the dog will be auctioned through open bidding. Dog limit per household Up to 5 marla: 1 dog (maximum 3 if separate households on each floor) 5 to 12 marla: 2 dogs 12 marla to 1 kanal: 3 dogs (at least 1 must be a mongrel/Indie) Above 1 kanal: 4 dogs (at least 2 must be mongrels/Indies) Agenda to hike community centre booking fees deferred The MC House deferred the agenda on the proposed increase in booking charges of community centres. The House decided that a survey will first be conducted to check the facilities in various community centres before the agenda is tabled again in the next House meeting.
Newsroom
24-05-2025
- General
- Newsroom
Short story: The Dart, by Miro Bilbrough
A lacework of crosses and dashes notched the counter person's fingers and hands as I watched these elegant inky gloves tap in my details and issue me a window emergency exit-row seat, never mind that I am short. Her tatau, she explained, was a malu pattern signifying shelter, protection and connection to her ancestors. Cultural respect! she summed up, statuesque in her green-and-black koru print uniform, to which I silently added, Female agency! And that is how I found myself two thirds of the way down the plane reading the special safety card on how to disarm the emergency door. Studying the multitude of arrows while making a note of my abbreviated memory for instructions and directions, I turned to the human dart who had recently lowered himself into the seat next to me, smiled out of the side of his face, and otherwise remained tacit. The doubling of his clothes was compelling. A black kerchief knotted pirate style under a cap, black tights with a sheeny damask of scales under neatly rolled-up cargo trousers, a further layering of dark cloth on top. The whole ensemble precisely curated. Excuse me but we're in this together, this disarming the door in an event of an emergency thing, I said by way of introduction. He darted his eyes at me and away. His smile disappeared all other primary features, enveloped and garlanded them. His cheek was gaunt and crosshatched with acne, young. Of course, he replied amiably and reached for his own disarm the door card. A silent perusing but not absorbing ensued. Is it just me or is this hard to understand? I offered. I could feel my neighbour's humour quicken on the other side of the arm rest. His whole body was fleet with it, fleet and elliptical. Not just you. These arrows seem to be going in different directions, you know, conflicting. I thought so too. So…if I turn the handle to the left and it collapses on me… The Dart's eyes danced up to mine and back down to his sneakery feet. …You will be my assistant while I am struggling with the door, I summarised. Your assistant, he agreed, andlaughed a laugh of no confidence and as we considered the exit. I sensed we might make a good team, just not for disarming doors while our plane fell from the sky. The door had boiled down the infographics into just two arrows and an illustration of itself falling inward: the Exit Plan for Dummies. Returning to my laminated card, I found the legend 'strong but heavy'.The Dart's pleasure in the slipperiness of language equalled my own as the adjectives merged object and handler into one formidable entity, a Hydra. 13 kilos, I mused, my dog's sixteen and I can lift him. What sort of dog? Whippet, brindled. Mine's an American Pitbull. My dog's nemesis. Nice. Strong but Heavy, The Dart concluded. Over the Sounds, I abandoned the elliptical vision of my neighbour for the blissful tablecloth of islands, isthmuses and water. I soaked these in while the Dart talked about his life as a deep-sea fisherman, and I recounted swimming straight off the road at Tahunanui. He didn't like ocean swimming, he said, not given what he knew about the creatures that inhabited the depths; the fish he had encountered, their bodies half munched off. The cooling islands pulled at my attention. I drank them in in gulped drafts. Fresh water was a different story. When people came to stay, he took them to Siberian Flats on the Wangapeka. He did a brief imitation of the uninitiated emerging from the freezing waters. One detail ceded another. His family had just been given notice on their fourth rental when his father was diagnosed with cancer. The Dart resigned from life on the boats. At this I relinquished the serpentine forms out the window in favour of his own. How long did you nurse him? The Dart made a self-correcting face. Assistant nurse, actually. To my mother. She was awesome. Two years. He was good with it though. I wondered how that might be possible. The air in front of me thickened with impressions, with intimations of a dead man, with cliché and archetype, before becoming just air again. He taught me so much. I shot a look at the Dart as he touched the pounamu at his neck. I had fallen into the rhythm of his scuttled looks and glances. It was, I found, more than enough. My own father had died two years earlier and although I had only attended him on that bed-bound journey for a matter of weeks, I knew that the Dart and I had experienced the grace and beneficence of a father who dies well. I feel like I'm in pause—The Dart left the word unstoppered as he fumbled before the large something that lay behind it, the fish from submarine depths that would not be landed. I've never stuck at any job since school. I'm afraid maybe I don't know how to commit. Maybe you get bored? I do. It was time to tell him my name. I'm Van, returned The Dart. Good name. Gender neutral with a touch of swagger. I like it. A stealth-ambition crept up on me on behalf of a young man who had left school early for mystery and the sea, who knew boredom, impatience, kindness, and death and who was, amongst other things, a serial renter like me. Don't settle, I said lightly to disguise the urgency that had taken hold at the fugitive view of possibility unfolding like that recent cloth of land and sea. Whatever you do, make sure it is so challenging you might feel—whatever—just don't settle. Yeah, said Van softly. I had entered the zone of zealotry and futility, of the old trying to pass inscrutable shit on to the young. I had no idea if he knew what the hell I was talking about or even if I did. The air hostess appeared at the front of the plane to announce our descent, and minutes later again to announce that we had landed. Those of you that have experienced any disturbance during the flight may disembark first, she intoned and, addressing the rest, please let those who have felt disturbed go ahead. Van and I exchanged incredulous looks. The flight had been smooth. What hell new euphemism was this? My ears experienced some disturbance, I said, inclining toward him. My legs feel a bit disturbed, he fired back, flexing his knees. The plane sat in suspense as a large woman lumbered up the aisle. Then another, a bundled form that emerged from behind us with a lot of bags and out past the airhostess. The number of bags made you feel suspicious about the self-diagnosis. On cue, the rest of us were on our feet. I parted with Van in Arrivals where my father's best friend Des was nowhere to be seen. Two years on, he and I were going to scatter half my father's ashes in the Rangitikei where the blue-grey cliffs that forms its banks is made of a clay called papa. In a hurry to catch a bus to his cousin's wedding, Van stayed with me to scout for my meet until I reluctantly urged him on his way. I passed Van as he doubled back in, and I exited for Pick Ups and Drops Offs where Des was waiting. I wasn't sure what Van had come back for, but we smiled at each other, full face this time. The slender thread of fate that connected us was being yanked one last time, but who knew? Seeing him in long shot in the Arrivals and Departures Hall I thought he really was as svelte as a dart, Van, but for now less directional. Asked what was on her mind when she wrote her story, the author replied, 'I was thinking, as I routinely do, about how to capture what I once heard the writer Sebastian Barry describe as the tincture of a person. His Irish accent made the descriptor indelible, and I knew immediately what he was talking about. How to get such a thing is another matter. It is basically impossible and that is why I write. It was extra impossible in The Dart's case. We had been seated side-by-side, so our glancing encounter was conducted in profile. But then, peripheral vision is a gift. 'I was thinking that the counter woman was maybe playing her own playful diversity game, never mind the orthodoxies of the seating plan. I struggled with her arresting beauty and the way her personal authority outstripped her station: how to suggest those things on the page without heading for homily. Reading a late draft, my friend Janine recognised her instantly from her own transits through Nelson airport. Queenly, was the word she used to describe her.'
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Yahoo
Two dogs returned after being stolen in Holyoke, three arrested
HOLYOKE, Mass. (WWLP) – Two dogs were returned to their owner after being stolen during a burglary in Holyoke on Saturday. Holyoke Police arrest man on multiple child rape charges The Holyoke Police Department states that at 11:40 a.m. on Saturday, officers were called to a breaking and entering at an apartment on St. Jerome Ave. The residents said three people who they know had broken in, damaged their property, and stole two of their dogs. Later on that day, officers observed the suspected vehicle in the area of Appleton Street and Beech Street and performed a traffic stop. The suspects had a American Pitbull and French Bulldog inside the car and were then returned to their owner. The three suspects were identified as 19-year-old Samuel Cardona of Springfield, 20-year-old Christalee Guzman of Holyoke, and a 15-year-old boy. Both Cardona and Guzman were arrested and charged with: Larceny Over $1,200 Breaking and Entering Nighttime for a Felony Vandalizing Property The 15-year-old who was arrested identity and charges have not been released due to his age. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Independent
06-03-2025
- The Independent
Slavery victim was forced to sleep beside dogs and beaten to death, court told
A vulnerable former chef died in a 'cuckoo' house after being repeatedly beaten, kept in slavery and forced to sleep beside dogs, a court has heard. The body of 55-year-old Dimitrios Tsavdaris was found in a foetal position in a flat in Hackney, north London, after he succumbed to weeks of violent attacks, the Old Bailey was told. He had allegedly been taken there from the home of Bamidele Fawehinmi in Wickford, Essex, where he slept on a mattress in a garage beside American Pitbull cross-breed dogs. Weighing just over eight stone, the victim was a frail 'vulnerable person' who may have been dead or dying for several days before his body was found last January 29, prosecutor Caroline Carberry KC said. He had suffered multiple fractures to his ribs, face and breastbone as well as old and new bleeding on the brain and internal injuries, jurors were told. Fawehinmi, 31, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of Mr Tsavdaris's murder and causing him grievous bodily harm. The defendant is also charged with keeping him and another man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in servitude. Ms Carberry told jurors the defendant was a drug dealer who 'preys on vulnerable men' who had struggled with drug addiction. She said: 'He beat them, he kept them in fear so they would do his bidding, he used them to help prepare, package and supply drugs and to drive him around. 'They lived in squalor at addresses associated with him. In return he fed their drug habit. The deceased, Dimitrios Tsavdaris was one such man. He was not the only one.' The victim, known as Jimmy, had worked as a chef and taxi driver before his world 'unravelled' following the sudden death of his brother some years ago, jurors were told. The flat where he died had been 'cuckooed' by the defendant, who took it over from another man and used it for drug dealing, it was alleged. The victim had been attacked there as well as at the defendant's home some 30 miles away in Essex, the court heard. Ms Carberry told jurors: 'There Dimitrios slept on a mattress on the floor of the garage where the defendant kept his dogs.' He was already badly injured when he was transported by the defendant to Hackney a week before his body was found, she said. Ms Carberry said: 'The police were alerted to Dimitrios' death by this defendant's own father who, upon learning from his son that there was a dead body in a flat associated with him, did the right thing and reported it to the police. 'Meanwhile his son, knowing he had killed a man, tried to flee the country via Heathrow airport to Lagos in Nigeria.' Jurors were told that the defendant's exploitation and abuse of vulnerable men amounted to 'modern slavery' and dated back several years. The court was told that a second alleged modern slavery victim would give evidence in the trial about how he was physically and mentally abused. The man was about 20 years older than Mr Tsavdaris and would drive the defendant around drug dealing for hours in his mobility vehicle, jurors heard. Both victims were allegedly tasked to look after America Pitbull dogs which the defendant was breeding at the rented house in Orkney Gardens. Ms Carberry said a neighbour had noticed about 14 puppies in the garden at one point. The surviving victim described how the defendant had erupted with violence after he got dog mess on the bristles of a brush he was using to clean up, jurors heard. Ms Carberry said the defendant used the man as a 'punchbag' before he switched to Mr Tsavdaris. In November 2023, a headteacher in Wickford called 999 after finding Mr Tsavdaris fearful and with cuts on his face outside school. The defendant allegedly turned up and claimed Mr Tsavdaris was his sick uncle. Before being taken to hospital for treatment, Mr Tsavdaris told police he was attacked every morning and evening by 'George', the court was told. Ms Carberry told jurors: 'In the absence of any protective measures being put in place, he somehow ended up back under the control of this defendant at Orkney Gardens. And it was there, over a number of weeks, where he was seriously assaulted, sustaining injuries which contributed to his death.' Police found Mr Tsavdaris's blood at the Wickford property and in the Kia car the defendant used to move him to Hackney, the court was told. The man living at the Hackney flat had allegedly told the defendant Mr Tsavdaris needed medical help but was too fearful to act. Jurors were told that a neighbour heard banging coming from the flat from late last January 26 until around 10am on January 28. Ms Carberry said: 'The neighbour thought it sounded as if someone was hitting a skirting board with an implement. Was this a desperate dying man left alone, trying to get attention?' Following his arrest, the defendant claimed in one prepared statement that there was 'an altercation', and he had punched Mr Tsavdaris several times in 'self defence'. He said: 'Jimmy was angry with me when I refused to give him money for crack cocaine.' Fawehinmi has denied the charges against him and the Old Bailey trial continues.
