The 12-year-old boy and his friend were sitting on skateboards in his friend’s driveway on a warm spring night.
Dawson Hooker stood up and his friend’s dog, Leroy, lunged at him, latching onto his neck.
Dawson smacked off the dog, a German shepherd mix, with his skateboard and ran two doors down to his home as he screamed. He had a large gash and puncture wounds in his neck.
"It was close to his jugular vein,” Richard Hooker, Dawson’s father, recalled of the 2012 incident. “If it had been slightly over, it would have been very bad. He would have lost a lot of blood real fast.”
Hooker, whose family lives near Cincinnati, decided to sue his neighbor to cover Dawson’s medical expenses and compensate him for the ordeal. He hired Slater & Zurz, an Akron-based law firm that specializes in dog-bite cases.
Slater & Zurz, which handles about 150 dog-bite cases a year across Ohio, has embarked on a campaign that is somewhat contrary to its business. The firm has created a kid-friendly video and book aimed at educating children on how to avoid being bitten by a dog. The firm has partnered with a few Akron-area schools, but is looking for more opportunities to share the materials with the community.
"If we can prevent one child from being hurt, we win,” attorney Jim Slater said in a recent interview. “If we can prevent 10 from being hurt, we hit a home run.”
Hooker thinks the effort is a great idea.
"I think it’s noble for him to do this,” he said of Slater. “They make good money. For him to try to prevent it, you wouldn’t think he’d consider such a thing. I think it’s really cool they’re trying to help kids.”
Lack of knowledge
When Slater was 10, he was nearly attacked by a dog.
He was late getting home and cut through a neighbor’s yard to shave a few minutes off his trip. The neighbor’s boxer came after him. He ran.
"I was so scared, I couldn’t run anymore,” Slater recalled. “When I stopped, the dog stopped.”
Slater had no idea at the time how to react or that not running was the right move. He thinks the same is true of most children — they don’t know how to act around dogs. He said many kids see dogs as “animated, fluffy toys” and don’t realize they can be dangerous.
Christine Fatheree, the director of the Summit County Division of Animal Control, agrees. She said most children, and some adults, aren’t educated about dealing with dogs. Her office responded to 37 dog bites in Summit County last year, with the Akron dog warden handling another 24.
"A lot of people don’t understand one bite can do a lot of damage,” she said. “They think if it is not a pit bull, it will be OK. People need to be aware of all dogs.”
"At the end of the day, it is an animal,” Fatheree continued. “The only way to defend itself is to bite.”
Dog bite lawsuits
Under Ohio law, a dog’s owner or whoever is taking care of the dog is held liable when it bites someone unless the person who was bitten was provoking, teasing the dog or trespassing.
A dog owner’s homeowner’s insurance normally covers dog bites. The person who was bitten — or, for minors, his or her parents — can sometimes agree on an amount with the insurance company. When this doesn’t happen, the injured party calls a law firm like Slater & Zurz.
In Hooker’s case, Slater & Zurz reached a court settlement with Hooker’s neighbor’s insurance company for about $50,000. Hooker said the money covered Dawson’s medical bills and attorney fees, with the rest put into an account with funds that will be disbursed to Dawson later in his life.
Slater & Zurz has represented young dog-bite victims who had part of the scalp bitten off, the tip of an ear torn off and a gash to the face so bad that it required reconstructive and plastic surgery. The firm is currently handling dog-bite cases in 31 Ohio counties and 45 cities.
About three years ago, attorneys with the firm decided they needed to try to prevent children from becoming clients.
"We need to do something,” said Tom Liebrecht, who does marketing for the firm.
Creating video/book
Liebrecht took the lead in developing an instructional book and video that would appeal to children.
He enlisted the help of students from Bowling Green State University who created music for a three-minute, animated video and illustrations for a 34-page book. Both feature Johnny, a young boy walking to his friend’s house who encounters several dogs along the way and has to decide how to react. The book and video, targeted to kids who are reading age, contain tips for the proper way for children to respond to different situations involving dogs.
Though the book is geared toward kids, Liebrecht said the tips apply to adults too.
“What’s in the book pops into your head,” he said.
The firm finished the book and video in the summer of 2015, but then faced the daunting task of figuring out how to get the materials to the intended audience.
Educational effort
The firm found a willing partner in the Akron Public Schools, which put links to the video and a digital version of the book on the district’s website and on the schools’ sites in May.
"It’s one of those things I’ve never seen anyone do,” Mark Williamson, a spokesman for the district, said of the materials.
Williamson said he thinks other districts should consider this step.
“There’s no downside,” he said. “He hands it to you. You put it on your website and on Facebook and Twitter. Some people see it. It gets out there. If one child is saved because of it, that’s great.”
The law firm also has provided the video and book to a few private schools in the area and has approached several organizations, including the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, about sharing the materials with their members.
The firm, however, has been frustrated because some districts and groups have been leery of putting the video or a link to it on their websites because they say if they do, they will have to do the same for other groups.
"It’s a little discouraging when you’re trying to do something nice,” Slater said.
The video and an online version of the book are available on the firm’s website, https://dogbitesohio.com/. Schools or organizations also can request hard copies of the video and book ¬— free of charge — via the site.
"Our goal is to get as many families as possible exposed to it and to review it as many times as they want,” Slater said.
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705, swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com and on Twitter: @swarsmithabj.