Owner Appeals ‘Dangerous Dog’ Designation But Doesn’t Contest Bulldog’s Two Violent Attacks in the Hammock

For only the third time in 10 years, the Flagler County Commission will hear an appeal next week by a dog owner whose bulldog, Luke, was declared “dangerous” by the county’s special magistrate following two attacks in the Hammock last October. The case hinges in substantial part on the determination of  a county animal control officer who is facing an unrelated criminal charge of animal cruelty, a potential vulnerability in the county’s case.

The commission may either uphold, reject or modify the order by Special Magistrate Sean McDermott–keeping in mind that the last time it upheld such an order, the dog owners appealed to County Court, then Circuit Court, and in a case that took three years and that the county appealed t the Fifth District Court of Appeal, won a reversal that removed the dangerous-dog designation.




Elected officials are loath to handle such cases, which can be extremely emotional and politically unpredictable, as Palm Coast officials discovered in the notorious case of Cooper, the dog the city declared dangerous and condemned to die in early 2019.

The case county commissioners face next Monday is not as dire. Luke is not facing death. But commissioners have to contend with their own animal control officer’s court case. And a a dangerous-dog designation imposes significant burdens and restrictions on dog owners, essentially ostracizing the dog from neighboring society, requiring owners to clearly designate their property as harboring a dangerous dog, and  clearly identifying the dog as dangerous either with a tattoo or an electronic implant. The dog must henceforth be registered annually.

Kim Bowman of Via Capri in the Hammock owns Luke, an 8-year-old Alapaha blue blood bulldog. The dog weighs between 80 and 100 pounds. David and Lisa May are next-door neighbors. They own a small maltipoo dog called Winston.

According to an Oct. 15 letter David May wrote the county, an unleashed Luke charged the Mays’ house twice since late September, trying to “get in my house at the window where my dog sits to watch the road and at our front door.” The special magistrate’s report, based on hearing testimony, described Luke on those occasions as displaying “threatening behavior and aggression by jumping or banging into the door and windows of the Mays’ home.”




On Oct. 14, David May was walking Winston when an unleashed Luke charged him and the dog. May picked up Winston to protect him. Luke jumped against May, knocking him to the ground, then attacked Winston. A witness told May he knocked his head against the ground, though May doesn’t remember that. The smaller dog suffered a bite wound on his abdomen and a bruised paw. The dog was treated at an emergency veterinary hospital for $347. Bowman did not dispute the facts of the attack.

Two weeks later Lisa May was walking Winston when almost the same sequence unfolded: an unleashed Luke attacked, knocked her over after she’d picked up Winston to protect him, and again bit the smaller dog, who was treated at an emergency hospital for a puncture wound above the eye and on his tail. “Many neighbors witnessed the incident and help capture the loose dog,” Lisa May wrote Animal Services on Oct. 31. “The dog pinned me to the ground and had to be dragged off me by a 6’2” man.” Winston’s emergency treatment bill at a veterinary hospital in Volusia County totaled $258.

“We would assume that after our first report,” Lisa May wrote, “Kim Bowman’s dog would be classified as a ‘dangerous dog’ and should be euthanized. The dog is a threat to our neighborhood. I should be able to walk my dog without fear of attack. The neighborhood is very concerned.”

Bowman again did not dispute the facts of the attack, according to the magistrate’s report.




Local authorities may condemn a dangerous dog to die. But the law is not precise in that regard: “If a dog is classified as a dangerous dog due to an incident that causes severe injury to a human being,” the law states, “based upon the nature and circumstances of the injury and the likelihood of a future threat to the public safety, health, and welfare, the dog may be destroyed in an expeditious and humane manner.” Flagler County is not seeking to kill the dog in this case.

Flagler County Animal Services’ Katie Share and Hailey Jankowski investigated the incident and found sufficient cause to declare Luke “dangerous.” They both testified to that effect at the hearing Bowman requested when she contested the designation. A “Dangerous dog” is defined in Florida law as one that chases or attacks a person in a public area unprovoked.

Share, 41, an employee of the Humane Society, is at the center of a criminal case dating back to June 2024. The cases are unrelated, but the criminal case has drawn attention and has repeatedly been mentioned to county commissioners by critics of the Flagler County Humane Society and Animal Services in the context of public discussions about the society’s capabilities to handle the large volume of animals in its care. (See: “Flagler Humane Society Blasted for Lax Standards and Euthanasias as Commissioner Raises Prospect of County Take-Over,” and “Flagler Humane Society Director Defends Shelter’s Euthanasia Record and Rejects Criticism as Inaccurate.”)

Share was initially charged with a felony county of animal cruelty after responding to an incident on Honey Tree Street in Bunnell where a dog she later described as “super sweet and loving” had been shot with buckshot in its rear. Share did not immediately seek treatment for the dog “as she was walking and did not seem to be in extreme pain,” she’d written a Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy investigating the dog shooting.




The investigating deputy contested the assertion that the dog could walk and determined that Share “failed to act in getting it examined” in a timely way, resulting in infection days later. The dog, Share’s arrest affidavit states, “stayed at the Humane Society without pain medication for 15 hours.” The State Attorney’s Office soon downgraded the charge to a misdemeanor count of animal cruelty. The case is in its pre-trial phase before County Judge Melissa Distler, with its next hearing on Feb. 5. Since it is only a misdemeanor, Share has not been suspended from her normal duties.

Bowman has marshaled supporting testimonies from friends and neighbors to contest the county’s determination. Marcus Taylor, who’s known Bowman for 15 years and known Luke since he was a puppy, described seeing the dog in many public places and around other dogs. “Never once have I seen him act aggressive to any person or other animals,” Taylor wrote. Torrey Pritchett wrote: “I find it hard to believe that Luke would hurt anyone at any time.” Banfield Pet Hospital’s Dr. Erik Seiler described Luke as a long-time patient who “at no time has shown aggression to staff or any other patients, while in hospital.”

The County Commission has heard dangerous-dog appeals only twice in the last 10 years–once almost three years ago, when it ratified its magistrate’s recommendation without comment (the case involved two German shepherds in the Hammock), and once in 2015. The commission’s 2022 decision was not contested. The 2015 decision was. The dog owners eventually won a settlement that forced the county to remove the dangerous dog designation. But the dog owners had to abide by a set of conditions.