Animal 411

New Canaan Police Impound Small Dog Reported as Found on Route 123

By |



New Canaan Police have impounded a small, neutered male dog that a Canaan Parish resident reported finding last Saturday afternoon on Route 123. The approximately 1-year-old dog—likely a mixed-breed, such as a Havapoo, Morkie or Havichon—was “frightened and suspicious” at first, according to Officer Allyson Halm, head of the New Canaan Police Department Animal Control section. “Now I’m his caretaker and best buddy,” she said. Anyone who recognizes the dog should contact Animal Control at 203-594-3510. 

Halm said she has named him “Vingt”—French for “20,” since he’s the twentieth impound of this fiscal year and arrived in 2020. He’s at widely discussed Animal Control shelter at the Transfer Station.

Allyson Halm

State: Animal Trapping Permit in New Canaan Extended Due to ‘Limited Success’

By |

State officials say they’ve extended a special permit to trap animals in southwestern New Canaan after an initial five-week period failed to yield results. Issued Sept. 23 for the area of Adams Lane after a coyote snatched and killed a momentarily unwatched small dog there, the nuisance wildlife control officer’s permit now is good through Nov. 30, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection officials said in response to a public records request from NewCanaanite.com. 

The extension is “due to limited success at the end of the initial period,” Mary Lou Kramer, a paralegal in the DEEP commissioner’s Office of Legal Counsel, said in an email. The trapping permit originally was issued to Tom Logan, Kramer said.

Allyson Halm

Nuisance Dog Citation for New Canaan Woman Whose German Shepherd Scared Neighbor

By |

Police fined an Old Studio Road woman $75 after her German shepherd dog got off-property and frightened a neighbor out with her own smaller canines, records show. The nuisance dog citation followed “several occasions” in which the shepherd, Monty, escaped the property, according to a case report obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request. On the morning in question, Sept. 23 (a Monday), the victim was walking her two small dogs when she saw the German shepherd running toward her. “[A] female child was trying to catch the dog but could not gain control,” according to the case report, written by Officer Allyson Halm, head of the New Canaan Police Department Animal Control section. 

Monty’s owner then “pulled up in her vehicle” and instructed the victim to get in her car, at which time the shepherd’s owner secured the dog, the report said.

Allyson Halm

New Canaan Man Fined After Dogs Bite Neighbor’s Backside

By |

Police fined a Benedict Hill Road man more than $300 after two dogs in his care bit a next-door neighbor in the buttocks on a Sunday morning last month, records show. At about 9 a.m. on Sept. 15, a woman was walking down her driveway to pick up newspapers when she saw her neighbor’s two dogs barking and running toward her, according to an incident report obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request. The woman told police later that afternoon that she’d been “very afraid” and beginning running toward her neighbor’s house “and she fell as the dogs began to bite her buttocks several times,” according to the incident report. She began “screaming as loud as she could” and then got back up and started running again toward her neighbor’s door, which he opened “to assist her as the dogs were still attempting to bite her,” the report said.

Animal 411

Emaciated Racing Pigeon Rescued at Waveny

By |

Police last week rescued an emaciated racing pigeon that touched down in New Canaan parks, the second such bird to have flown off-course and landed in town in the past month. Officer Allyson Halm, head of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control section, said that she first spotted an exhausted pigeon last Monday, resting under cars in the parking lot at Irwin Park. 

The pigeon hopped away that day, but Halm said she saw the same distinctive bird on Thursday on a trail at Waveny. “It let me catch it,” Halm said. “Skinny as all can be… You can clearly feel the breastbone.”

Domestically raised and trained, racing pigeons are tagged and belong to hobbyists who release them remotely and clock the time it takes them to fly back home in competition. The rescued bird is now “eating like a pig,” Halm said.