A group of Burlington neighbors says a vicious dog continues to disturb the neighborhood, months after residents first sought help from the city. The long-running dispute has pitted politically connected neighbors against one another — and landed a county prosecutor, who owns the dog, in court.
Last week, the 65-pound male brindle mix, named Moose, attacked a man walking his dog in Leddy Park, sending him to the emergency room.
The latest incident came roughly six months after the city ordered Moose’s owner, Diane Wheeler, to rehome the dog, a decision she appealed. The issue remains in Chittenden County Superior Court.
The public dustup began in January, when New North End neighbors wrote a letter to the city’s animal control committee expressing their concerns about Moose’s behavior. The dog had repeatedly exhibited aggressive behavior since it was adopted almost two years ago, the neighbors said.
In their complaint, neighbors from five households alleged that on several occasions over a period of six months, Moose was allowed outside off-leash, charged neighbors, lunged at leashed dogs and bit at least one person and two other dogs.
“Everybody gives graciousness to something like that, but then it started to escalate,” Llu Mulvaney-Stanak, one of the neighbors who signed the letter, said last week.
Neighbors said in the complaint that Wheeler refused “to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and shrugs off that this dog is dangerous to the neighborhood.”
“We have reached a point where this is no longer tolerable for our neighborhood,” the neighbors wrote. “The dog’s needs are not being met and it is just a matter of time before something much more grave happens, like an attack on a child or a mauling of another dog.”
At least two of the involved parties have ties to state and local government. Mulvaney-Stanak, a nonprofit leader and former political campaign manager, is the twin sibling of Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak. Wheeler is a deputy state’s attorney in Franklin County.
Wheeler did not respond to multiple requests for comment by phone and email on Friday and Monday.
Now, Mulvaney-Stanak said, they are concerned about the dog’s behavior as an ongoing public safety and accountability issue.
“We don’t want the dog to be put down,” they said last week. “This is just not a good place for this dog.”
At an animal control committee hearing in March, which Wheeler and her mother, Carol Wheeler, attended, animal control officers and neighbors testified about Moose’s “pattern of aggressive, intimidating, and at times, violent behavior.”
Meeting minutes from the hearing show the Burlington Police Department responded to the Wheelers’ home on two occasions in early 2023, both for reports of Moose being at-large and barking. Wheeler received a warning and then a municipal ticket.
Incidents over the following months culminated in a bite in December 2023, one of the final events before the complaint was filed in January. During the incident, Diane Wheeler retrieved Moose, who was running unrestrained in the street, to introduce him to a leashed dog walking with its owner nearby. Upon introduction, Moose bit the other dog, resulting in four puncture wounds.
Wheeler told the committee she had taken actions to address Moose’s behavior, including installing an electric garage door, socializing him with a police emotional support dog, using an electric collar and enlisting a dog trainer. The trainer, neighbors said in their complaint, had Moose spend more time unleashed in front of the Wheelers’ house.
Diane Wheeler indicated that other options, such as muzzling the dog and fencing in the backyard, were not an option, according to the meeting minutes.
Neighbors told the committee about the tense atmosphere Moose’s presence had created in the neighborhood, including young children on the street experiencing fear. The neighbors’ complaint said Wheeler’s mother was often unable to control Moose on walks when he tried to engage with other dogs. When he barks and pulls, Carol “has often dropped the leash to ‘let the dog play’ with another dog,” the complaint said, leaving Moose uncontrollable.
“It is not play,” Mulvaney-Stanak said in the interview last week. “That dog is in attack mode or defend-itself mode.”
Following the March meeting, the city’s animal control committee determined Moose to be a vicious dog and ordered Wheeler to rehome him within 30 days to a home or facility that could manage the dog’s behavioral needs, with additional restrictions within the rehoming period.
“Given the repeated and serious nature of the incidents and the remaining options available, the Committee concludes that removing Moose from the Wheeler residence is necessary to protect the public and that no other less severe measure will be sufficient,” the committee wrote.
But Wheeler has appealed the rehoming order in court. Moose, she said in an April notice to the Chittenden County Superior Court, serves as an emotional support dog to assist her with health issues and as “an emergency alert” for her mother when Wheeler is at work. Moose was rehomed to live with the Wheelers after he was bit by a dog in his previous home, and he “has bouts of depression with issues of not eating and not drinking” when left with other people, according to the appeal filing.
Wheeler failed to show up for a scheduled court hearing on July 1, citing last-minute work conflicts and a mixup on her calendar.
The case is ongoing. As of September 4, Wheeler has 60 days to file a motion for summary judgment. In the meantime, the previous order has been stayed by Judge Samuel Hoar, with some conditions, including that Moose be kept in a fenced enclosure or on a leash on the Wheeler’s property, and when off of their property, “under the control of an individual capable of keeping the dog restrained at all times.”
“I think she’s wasting court resources,” Mulvaney-Stanak said. “She firsthand should know, don’t waste the court’s time.”
Last week, Moose was involved in the most recent incident, sending a man to the University of Vermont Medical Center emergency room, according to a police report. While on a leashed walk at Leddy Park, Moose got loose and ran toward the man and his dog. Moose bit the man as he intervened between the two dogs.
“He believed the woman had dropped the leash or had been stepping on it as it quickly left her grasp,” police wrote in the report. “The dog had injured his right hand, and there were multiple puncture wounds on the back and palm of his hand.”
The name of the woman police spoke to about the incident was redacted in the police report, but the report makes clear it was not Diane Wheeler. The woman police spoke to said she had been walking Moose when the dog bit the man.
Speaking to a Burlington police officer the next day, according to the report, the woman “doubted how (the man) could prove it was Moose that bit him versus his own dog during the altercation.”
The officer issued a ticket to a member of the Wheeler residence.
Read the story on VTDigger here: A county prosecutor’s dog continues to attack others. Burlington neighbors have had enough..