Did you try pressing charges for something like criminal negligence?
The dog ultimately got hit by a car. Neighbors came out to assist my wife and dog. I took my wife to the clinic, neighbors took the dog to an animal hospital. The owner of the dog eventually showed up at the vet and the dog died.
You have to fill out an animal bite form, which we did. It gets an investigation going into whether or not the dog had rabies and/or needs to be put down, quarantined, etc. The vet was able to confirm the dog didn’t have rabies and the dog died so there was no need to do the investigation. The case was pretty much documented and just closed.
We couldn’t even get anyone to tell us who the dog owners were. Police wouldn’t help, the vet couldn’t release the pet owner information, the city wouldn’t let me know the information, and a lawyer wouldn’t take the case.
The city did say I could file an open records request and I was finally able to get a copy of the dog bite form which contained the pet owners address. It took weeks just to get the address. I went and knocked on their door and confirmed they were the owners. They were unwilling to help and the cops would just direct me to get a lawyer.
I was shocked at how unwilling to help out everyone one was when it came to trying to hold the owners accountable.
I even tried to get them to file a homeowners insurance claim to see if their insurance would cover medical bills. They were Mexican nationals and paid cash for their house. They don’t have insurance so I couldn’t even go that route.