Fairbanks panel upholds euthanasia order for a German shepherd reported 26 times

A Fairbanks North Star Borough commission voted 8-1 on Oct. 14 to uphold an order to euthanize Shadow, a German shepherd who bit a man at his family's home in September. The man he bit had told Animal Control he didn't want the dog put down.

The bite itself was minor. The man was at the house on Long Spur Loop on Sept. 22 to provide a towing service when a family member opened the door and Shadow got out, according to Animal Control's staff report. Shadow bit him twice, and one bite broke the skin on his upper arm. The man said he believed the dog was "playing."

Animal Control Officer Mary Foster, who ordered the euthanasia, wrote that she weighed more than that one bite. She cited Shadow's history, the many recent complaints, his owners' failure to follow conditions set years earlier and what she called the inconsistency of the home. "This is not a decision I make lightly, but one I have made for the safety of the community," she wrote to the owners.

The borough declared Shadow a dangerous animal in February 2023, after he lunged at officers who were trying to catch another dog from the same home. It ordered him neutered and microchipped and told his owners to build a kennel. In the three years since, none of those conditions were met, Foster wrote. That May, Shadow and the other dog, Junior, were both loose when Junior was hit and killed by a truck on the Johansen Expressway.

Shadow has been reported to Animal Control 26 times, 13 of them for running loose and acting aggressively. Several came this summer. In August, he was reported to have tried to bite someone and to have gone after a moving SUV. On Sept. 12, according to the report, he allegedly attacked and bit an older man on a bicycle. His owners have been cited for him being loose and for not meeting the dangerous-animal conditions, with fines totaling $2,520.

Tanya Zuniga, one of three people listed as Shadow's owners, appealed the order. "Shadow is a member of our family and we consider him as our baby," she wrote in her handwritten application. His circumstances were "hard to explain on paper," she wrote, and she asked for a hearing "so that we may explain."

No one from the family submitted documents by the deadline or came to the hearing to make a case, according to the hearing packet and the commission's draft minutes. Commissioners discussed alternatives to euthanasia that Animal Control had tried, and that had failed, before voting. Commissioner Jenny Roddewig cast the only vote against the order.