Battle over who ought to take care of retired Toronto trauma canine heads to courtroom – Toronto | USAEMALL.com

Dandy, an 11-year-old yellow Labrador retriever, has been a source of comfort for hundreds of people over the years as a trauma dog with Victim Services Toronto.

Now, the dog’s former handler, Roman Dabrowski, who has worked and lived full-time with Dandy for the past six years, is engaged in a fight with VST and Dandy’s owner over who should keep the retired trauma service dog.

“Neighbours, friends, Sunnybrook Hospital team, everybody sent letters in saying, ‘This is not right and she should stay with Roman,’” Dabrowski told Global News outside Toronto’s Superior courthouse, where he and Dandy supported victims who testified in court over the years.

“And this just spurred me on to say, ‘This is not right. You just can’t take a dog out of a family home and expect the dog to keep working, especially as they get older,”

Dabrowski, who became a volunteer in 2008 before being hired on as a crisis counsellor in 2014 and a trauma dog handler in June 2019, says he has been Dandy’s exclusive caregiver outside of work for more than half of the dog’s life.

The two worked together for 57 months and said it was mutually agreed upon with VST that, because the female dog was slowing down, he and Dandy would retire together at the end of February 2024.

Dabrowski said based on his discussions with the dog’s owner, former VST interim executive director Bobbie McMurrich, who loaned Dandy to VST in 2017, he believed the two would co-parent Dandy upon his retirement.

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Dandy’s owner, McMurrich, is also listed as a respondent on the application.

“She said to me that she had no intention of taking Dandy on a full-time basis. She wanted to travel. She wanted to take care of her mother and she had things to do, so I thought, ‘Perfect,’” Dabrowski told Global News.

He said he reached out to McMurrich via text to discuss putting a “co-parenting agreement” into writing, but it never happened.

In November 2023, Dabrowski said things suddenly changed.

“She called me up out of the blue and said she decided Dandy was going to live with her. Dandy’s address was going to be her address. She was going to make all life decisions for Dandy and the worst part was she was going to take Dandy into retirement homes,” said Dabrowski, who called the phone call “devastating,” given he believed McMurrich was reneging on their agreement.

After months of attempting to negotiate with McMurrich, Dabrowski said he retired with Dandy because this was the arrangement with VST. On April 5, 2024, he was served with a notice of application from VST.

In the application, lawyers for VST stated that, in or around January 2017, McMurrich and a former executive director of VST entered in a verbal agreement by which McMurrich agreed to temporarily loan Dandy to VST.

The application states that Dabrowski, as the primary trauma dog handler, was permitted to have Dandy live with him during his employment but “was never granted any form of ownership” and on resignation date, he was required to return Dandy.

In his lengthy response to the notice of application filed by Dabrowski’s lawyer, text messages with McMurrich are included in which Dabrowski asks for the “co-parenting arrangement regarding Dandy” to be put in writing. Letters of reference and photos showing Dabrowski and Dandy receiving awards for their service are also included.

In a statement to Global News, Barbra H. Miller, a lawyer for VST, wrote: “Dandy was a trauma dog with VST. Dandy is microchipped and registered to her legal owner, Bobbie McMurrich, who permitted VST to borrow Dandy as a trauma dog.”

In her statement, Miller added Dabrowski had “refused” to return Dandy.

“Roman Dabrowski was the handler of Dandy for a period of time in which he was employed with VST and he refused to return Dandy to VST on his retirement, despite his obligation to do so,” she wrote.

“While there were discussions between Roman and Bobbie about possible arrangements for Roman to have some access to Dandy on Dandy’s retirement, the parties never reached agreement.”

The case will go to court in December.

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