A Verdun woman who had been fighting to prevent her dog from being confiscated by the city saw her beloved emotional support animal seized Friday morning. Courtney Mattix thinks authorities were heavy handed in their intervention.
“My dog is my life. My dog is my everything,” she told Global News through tears, after her dog Keemo was taken away.
Last weekend the city ordered Mattix to turn Keemo over to authorities, claiming that she failed to abide by conditions imposed on the dog after it bit a child last May.
She says it wasn’t Keemo’s fault, and that the young girl was bitten after climbing a fence onto private property.
“How are you allowing your seven-year-old to climb over somebody’s fence?” she says. “My dog is not vicious.”
Her 21-year-old daughter, Iesha, says Keemo is not a violent dog.
“I’ve known him since he was two months old. Sweetest dog in the world.”
Mattix claims she met all the conditions, including getting a veterinarian to do a behavioural evaluation of Keemo, and muzzling the animal when in public.
She says after someone took a photo of her removing the muzzle as she entered her property last week, the city ordered her to give up the dog.
Neighbours have shown their support for Keemo, some participating in a protest earlier this week. It wasn’t enough.
“I woke up to banging on my door,” said Mattix.
She claims that at 8:30 Friday morning, police demanded she open her apartment door.
When she asked them to wait a moment so she could get dressed, she says they began to enter.
“They had the locksmith or somebody with them that can pick locks, so they started unlocking my door,” she said.
Mattix agreed to bring Keemo out on her own. When she arrived outside, she saw an officer carrying a shield.
“They went above and beyond for no reason,” she said. “I’m not a murderer.”
“It was way too aggressive. Way too forceful,” said Iesha, who filmed much of the intervention.
Mattix says her heart broke as she loaded Keemo into a cage in a van.
“It devastated me. My dog is basically looking at me like, ‘Mom, why are you giving me to these people?'” she said.
“It’s her emotional support dog. It helps her throughout the day for her emotions. You can’t take it away,” said her daughter, who expressed deep concern for her mother’s mental health without the dog present.
Courtney Mattix has been fighting cancer, and dealing with other health problems for years.
The mother and daughter are in disbelief of how many police officers showed up for the dog seizure. Mattix says they blocked several streets and alleyways to seize the dog.
“If the city obtains new information demonstrating the guardian of an animal is not respecting conditions emitted under a decision, it can order the guardian to turn the animal over to a shelter,” City of Montreal spokesperson Laurianne Tardif explained in an emailed statement.
Mattix was able to find out where Keemo is, and is now getting some pro bono help from a lawyer as she tries desperately to get him back.
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