Jimi’s fate adjourned until new year

The fate of Jimi, a dog accused of fatally attacking another dog at an off-leash city park, will wait until the new year after a court date for his owner was pushed back until January.

Thunder Bay lawyer Francis Thatcher, who is representing Jimi’s owner Erin Unick, said he asked for the Jan. 26 date because charges were only laid last week. The lawyer added that the pit bull accusation against the dog complicates the matter, and that the events surrounding the death of the small dog are still unclear.

Unick’s boyfriend Scott Zimmer was with Jimi earlier this month when the dog, which the couple describes as a border collie cross, was at a Beverley Street dog park where a chihuahua was killed. The owner of the chihuahua says her dog was killed following an attack.

Thatcher said Unick purchased Jimi from the Thunder Bay Humane Society on Apr. 16, 2007 and was told he was a border collie cross.

"Because there is an allegation that the dog in question, Jimi, is a pit bull then there is an obligation on Miss Unick and Mr. Zimmer to establish whether or not it is a pit bull and that’s going to require some rather painstaking research that may include a DNA analysis," Thatcher said outside the Ontario Provincial Offences Court on Archibald Street Wednesday morning.

The accusations that Jimi was part pit bull came more than three years after the dog’s adoption, and those accusation’s came as a surprise to Unick and Zimmer. Thatcher said the events surrounding the chihuahua’s death are also in question.

"(Unick and Zimmer) are just devastated by the allegations laid against Jimi," he said. "The other dog died but it’s unclear yet how that happened."