At the home of Dr. Robert Taffet and family, the warning signs tell some of the story. Duke, one of the Taffet's prized Rhodesian ridgebacks, was set to be destroyed Friday. It was a legal mandate resulting from his latest attack on a child. It had happened before.
As in an earlier case, the victim was the friend of one of the Taffets' younger children. In the first case, the dog was found to have bitten off the ear of Dennis McVeigh's 3-year-old daughter when she visited Taffet's Salem County goat farm.
The McVeigh's went to court to have Duke declared potentially dangerous. That didn't happen, and McVeigh spoke with Action News at the time: "It's difficult to hear a 4-year-old talk about being in pain when she yawns, when she sneezes. So, we're disappointed. And we really just don't want to see this happen again," said Dennis McVeigh.
However the latest incident vaulted Duke to the "vicious" category in the eyes of the law.The /*Taffets*/ have owned several ridgebacks. It is a species originally bred in Africa for lion hunting. Haddonfield's police chief says the other Rhodesians have been accused of attacking others in the neighborhood, including a doctor whose arm was chewed.
Late Friday, the Haddonfield Police Chief John Banning confirmed that Duke was been put down. Perhaps tensions will recede now in that neighborhood on this quiet town's south side.
