By Emily Mibach
Daily Post Staff Writer
A Menlo Park family is fighting $25,000 in fines and other expenses after a hearing officer deemed their golden retriever “dangerous.” The family filed a petition in San Mateo County Superior Court to overturn the designation for Bar, who is about 4 years old.
Bar was designated as a “dangerous animal” after he and a husky got into a tussle as they passed each other during a walk. The husky ended up having a 5-millimeter scratch near its neck, which was reported to the Peninsula Humane Society, which performs animal control services for San Mateo County, including Menlo Park.
The owners of a “dangerous animal” must pay fines to the city, must be on a leash whenever outside, have a fenced-in yard as approved by animal control, signs put up at the home saying a dangerous animal lives there, to neuter the dog and many other requirements, according to city code.
The incident occurred on Aug. 10 while Bar’s owners, Tobias Kunze and Liliana Kunze Briseno, were on vacation and he was staying with a pet sitter. On that day, the pet sitter took Bar and her own dog, Sundae, out for a walk. As the pet sitter and the two dogs walked down Central Avenue, they encountered a husky being walked by a woman pushing a stroller. The pet sitter decided to cross the street as the dogs tried to run toward each other, and the husky allegedly provoked the incident, the petition says.
One of Bar’s owners saw the husky’s owner posting on social media trying to figure out what occurred. Bar’s owners offered to pay the bill for the husky. The other dog’s injuries did not require any stitches or sutures, only a cleaning, which cost $128. The Kunze Briseno family also paid for the husky’s $54 follow-up visit to the vet.
The family’s attorney, Christine Kelly, said while Bar’s designation is not the worst punishment he could have received, he shouldn’t have gotten deemed dangerous at all. The other designation is “vicious,” which is when animal control determines the dog needs to be put down.
Kelly called the restrictions onerous and says there ought to be a third designation called “potentially dangerous” where there if a dog does not offend again, it loses the designation and the family doesn’t have to pay high fees.
The Kunze Briseno family says in legal filings that they decided to get a golden retriever given its “gentle, loving, therapeutic and playful nature” and its adaptability, as the family has an adult cat.
Once the family brought home Bar, which is the German spelling for Bear, he became one of the neighborhood’s “most well-loved dogs,” a video included in the legal filing shows Bar walking the neighborhood on different days, greeting neighbors of all ages.
Bar has also attended multiple types of training by “esteemed” trainers as the family worked to ensure that Bar would be a good neighbor.
The court filing points out that between 2020 to 2022, Bar visited a neighborhood dog park well over 200 times and interacted with “hundreds” of dogs, children and adults, never acting aggressively toward anyone.
The filing from the family says they will have to spend over $20,000 to build higher fences and a kennel at their home, and another $5,000 or so will be spent on fees and other payments.
The Post did not hear back from City Attorney Nira Doherty or City Manager Justin Murphy about the city’s response to the petition.