Cullinane v. Board of Selectmen

This proceeding started with a complaint to the Maynard board of selectmen suggesting, in effect, that two dogs, “Shadow,” a female Rottweiler, and her daughter “Misty,” a mixed breed, were a pair constituting (to quote from G. L. c. 140, § 1571) “a nuisance by reason of vicious disposi*852tian,” and seeking remedy by an “order concerning the restraint or disposal” of the dogs. The proceeding has wound its way from selectmen to clerk-magistrate to judge of District Court to Superior Court with regrettable slowness; it is now in its fifth year with the dogs left meanwhile in custody of the town’s…