Page 15 - MIN JUS AUG 07

North Attleboro family wins
custody in Aruba dog case

ATTLEBORO — Coco, the dog from Aruba at zerland. “when they neglected to provide the basic needs of
the animal ... allowing her to become a stray.”
the center of an international struggle in a lawsuit in After she learned the dog was adopted by a tourist, The judge noted Tromp made little or no effort to
Attleboro District Court, will get to stay at her home Hajdirnyak testified, she and Lisa-Marie O’Connell locate the dog.
in North Attleboro. ended up exchanging emails. She testified she of-
Lisa-Marie O’Connell, who was sued over the dog by fered to buy O’Connell a rescue dog and pay all her Mathers wrote that the care the dog was receiving at
two residents of Aruba, was awarded ownership of expenses if she returned the dog she knew as Whitey. the time “was haphazard at best and likely to come
the mixed-breed dog in a decision by Judge Edmund from concerned tourists as from Mr. Tromp or a
Mathers, who heard the two-day trial last month. In his five-page decision, Mathers found that Tromp
and Hajdirnyak had not established that they housekeeper.”
“I’m over the moon. Ecstatic. The easy thing to do owned the dog and that the ownership agree- The neighbors’ lawyer, Keith
would have been to give the dog back. I did the right ment they presented as evidence was not Langer of Wrentham,
thing,” O’Connell said in an interview with The Sun valid. said he has not read the
Chronicle. The judge also found portions of their judge’s decision and
“I won. I feel I will be forever indebted to the judge. testimony inconsistent or not cred- could not comment
He got it right,” O’Connell added. ible. For instance, the judge found on the ruling or
O’Connell was vacationing with her husband Dan inconsistent that they would craft whether his clients
in October 2014, when they and others came across an ownership agreement, and would appeal.
two dogs on the beach which she testified were hun- yet “be so lax as to allow the dog The plaintiffs
gry, thirsty and covered with ticks. The dogs had no to run freely on a regular basis have 30 days to
identification tags, she testified. without a collar, identification appeal.
tag” or an implanted computer
The O’Connells took Coco to a veterinarian on the identification chip.
island and ended up adopting her with the help of
an animal welfare agency. He also ruled that even if the
O’Connell testified she feared Coco would be eutha- neighbors had le-
nized by authorities in Aruba, which has a policy of gal owner-
killing stray dogs because they ship, it
are so prevalent. was
sur-
An animal welfare volunteer ren-
testified that authorities eu- dered
thanize 8,000 dogs a year and
that her organization assists
with the adoption of about
150 dog a year, mostly by
tourists.
The O’Connells were sued
by Cornelia Hajdirnyak and How-
ard Tromp, next-door neighbors in
Aruba who contended they had a co-
ownership agreement of the dog they
called “Whitey.”
They contended the dog ran away
or got lost at some point while
Hajdirnyak was at her home in Swit-

2 LOCAL Friday, August 7 2015 - ARUBA TRAVELLER