A Multnomah County hearings officer has ordered that Jessie Miller must permanently give up his pit bull mix Bubbie after designating the canine dangerous for mauling a runner in Southeast Portland in April, less than two months after he attacked another dog.
The order this month followed a three-hour appeal hearing where Miller called the dog his “best friend,” and a smart animal who finds ways to get off leash. At the same hearing, the woman who was mauled unwrapped protective coverings on her right arm and legs to show the hearings officer and Miller her lasting scars from the attack.
Cheryl Wakerhauser, who was assaulted as she was running along Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard on April 17, and Kara Bloom, whose poodle Rocky underwent surgery after it was maimed by Bubbie in February both testified, as did Miller, his mother and a friend.
Hearings Officer Tony Schwartz ruled that Miller failed to control his dog, allowing it to run off leash, and that suspending his ownership was the only remedy for community safety.
“Bubbie clearly and obviously, while at large, caused severe physical injury to another human and physical injury to another canine,” Schwartz wrote. “The inability of Mr. Miller to control Bubbie, paired with Bubbie’s aggression and Bubbie’s on-going ability to escape from leash-control suggest that any alternative to Suspension of Ownership would not result in a workable scenario for anyone involved.”
The hearing resulted from Miller’s appeal of the county animal service’s May 1 designation of his dog as dangerous.
The county had briefly taken the dog into custody after Wakerhauser’s assault but released it to Miller’s mother a day later. Within a day, however, Miller had retrieved his dog and it remained on the street until a warrant was signed for its seizure and it was found on May 6, according to county records.
Wakerhauser’s case prompted the county animal shelter to change its quarantine policy and require all animals that severely bite a person to remain in quarantine for 10 days at the Troutdale facility.
Miller attended the July appeal hearing without a lawyer and asked for it to be postponed. Schwartz declined to do so, noting Miller had more than two months to prepare and find a lawyer and that he hadn’t sought a postponement earlier.
Further, other witnesses were present and the dog had been in county custody since May 6 so a resolution was needed, the officer said.
The hearing marked the first time Miller has spoken publicly about his dog. Bubbie is about 18 months old, and Miller has had the dog since it was a puppy, he said.
Swiveling in a chair before the hearings officer, Miller, who lives in a van on the street, acknowledged he wasn’t present when the dog attacked Wakerhauser.
Miller said he was sick and vomiting and allowed his friend to take the dog for a walk, he said. The friend let the dog run off leash in a vacant, fenced-off property along Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard.
Miller suggested that Wakerhauser must have done something to agitate his dog, fallen or possibly slapped it. He questioned if Bubbie was trying to “kiss” the runner.
“Maybe she freaked him out…I don’t believe that he would’ve mauled her. He might have got scared,” Miller said. “I’m super sorry about what happened…He’s a wonderful pup. He’s a great dog.”
If he was vicious, he argued, the county would not have released him to his mother a day later. Cheryl Wakerhauser, victim of dog attack
Wakerhauser made it clear that she was running by the vacant property at 4511 Southeast Hawthorne Blvd. when she felt something strike her from behind and she ended up on the ground.
“I felt like there was something grabbing me. The next thing I knew I was on the ground on my back, and a dog was biting my leg,” she said. “It just keep biting me and biting me over and over again.’’
Her voice tinged with emotion, she explained how she kept yelling at the “top of my lungs,” for help, “and no one was coming.”
“The dog just continued biting me and biting me like I was a piece of meat,” she said.
Asked by the hearings officer if she did anything to provoke the dog, she said no, that it came at her from behind. “I was on the ground and it was eating my legs,” she said.
It wasn’t until Wakerhauser caught the eye of a motorist, who turned around and pulled up nearby, repeatedly honking her horn, that another man holding a leash walked up, told her it wasn’t his dog but grabbed Bubbie and walked away with the dog. The motorist then got out to try to help Wakerhauser, and police and firefighters responded to her 911 call.
Multnomah County Animal Control Officer Megan Schiewe, who was called out to the scene, testified that when she arrived, the dog was in the back of a Portland police car, and the man who had grabbed the dog ran off and was chased by police. Police had identified him as Theron D. Bates.
Bates had swallowed fentanyl and was taken to a local hospital, she said. Miller and his mother also arrived, and she told them that the dog would have to be impounded to start a 10-day quarantine. Miller said he was living on the street, didn’t have a cell phone and was not watching his dog at the time of the attack, she said.
The next day, Marcie Miller, Miller’s mom, was allowed to take the dog out of the shelter to her home in Washington state to quarantine there, Schiewe confirmed. But within 24 hours, the dog was no longer at Marci Miller’s house, and Jessie Miller had retrieved it.
“I was informed that Jessie came by while she was not home and took the dog out of her house, and she did not know where he was at that time,” Schiewe said.
Marcie Miller disputed Schiewe’s account of the chain of events. She said a day after she took the dog to her home in Camas, she said she got a call from Schiewe, who told her, “I messed up,” and said she needed to take Bubbie back into custody, Marcie Miller said.
Marcie Miller said she took the dog to stay with a friend of her son’s, and her son grabbed the dog from the friend’s home.
“We love our dog, and we don’t want him put to sleep,” Marcie Miller said. “He might have made a mistake, but he doesn’t deserve to die. I think he deserves a chance.”
Bloom testified that her dog Rocky was attacked by Bubbie during their morning walk about 10 weeks earlier, on Feb. 3, after she had seen Bubbie chase after a bicyclist. Bloom saw two people run after Bubbie and thought they had put the dog on a leash so she continued walking with her own dogs along Southeast Clinton Street, between 26th and 27th avenues.
“The next thing I knew this dog was standing over my dog and began attacking him,” Bloom said. “He just jumped over the top of his spine, bit down onto his rib cage on both sides.”
Bubbie punctured Rocky’s lung, and the poodle required surgery. Rocky recovering
Rocky, a poodle mix, pictured here recovering from surgery after he was attacked by an unleashed pit bull mix in early February while out for his usual morning walk in Southeast Portland, his owner Kara Bloom said.Courtesy of Kara Bloom
Bloom showed the hearing officer photos of the sutures to Rocky’s belly, and her veterinarian bill of $3399.38 with a follow-up visit that cost about $125. While Rocky was still hospitalized, Bloom confronted Miller in a van parked in her neighborhood, she said. He grabbed his dog and walked off, and she attempted to warn neighbors about the dog, Bloom said.
“Mr. Miller’s conduct, on April 17, 2023, in allowing a friend to walk Bubbie unleashed — where Bubbie had previously chased a bicyclist and attacked Rocky on February 3, 2023 while off leash — was careless, inadvertent and/or negligent,” the hearings officer concluded.
The hearings officer ordered Miller to pay Bloom $3,425.43 in restitution for Rocky’s medical expenses. Wakerhauser was given until Jan. 11 to submit her total medical costs.
Miller has the right to appeal the hearings officer’s order and challenge the restitution.
Bubbie remains in protective custody in a security kennel at Multnomah County Animal Services until Miller’s appeal period has passed, according to the county. The county won’t move to euthanize the dog until Miller’s appeal period - at least 20 days from his notice of the Aug. 11 order - has passed, according to the county.
Wakerhauser, who reviewed the county’s report on its response to her dog attack, said the county never should have released the dog back to Miller’s mother. She said she also believes the county failed to take action when Bloom reported the assault on her poodle and made follow-up calls to the county animal control office about the location of Miller’s van.
County Animal Control Officer Nathan Leaven said at the hearing he went out four times to try to locate Miller’s van based on Bloom’s reports but said he “kept missing him.”
Wakerhauser said she now wears silicone bandages over her right arm and legs up to 23 hours a day, having been told they may help reduce the scarring over time. She said she still feels tingling, a numbing sensation and “shocks of pain” in her arm.
She said she’s resumed her morning runs, but every time she spots a dog off leash, she stops, crosses the street and heads the opposite direction.
-- Maxine Bernstein