Alaska News

Dog in the fight: Alaskans love their canines, except when they don't

Depending on who tells this story, Kiersten Lippmann is either a sad victim of cyberbullies or a reckless owner of a loose pack of biting dogs.

Anchorage is full of people who love their dogs like family. Some of these people cannot comprehend that an animal that is family to them is to others just a dog, a sometimes threatening and scary cousin of the wolf no matter the thousands of years of domestication.

Enter Lippmann, a former staff scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, a former member of the University of Alaska Anchorage ski team, a fairly well-known endurance athlete in the community, and the owner of several Belgian Tervuren dogs.

Lippmann runs regularly with her dogs in Far North Bicentennial Park on the city's Hillside. Skiers, fat-tire bikers, walkers and runners claim to have met her dogs loose on the trails there and felt threatened. At least two people reported the dogs to Anchorage Animal Control, and more than a dozen have made Facebook claims of confrontations with Lippmann's dogs, though it is unclear how many -- if any -- of these encounters actually involved Lippmann's dogs.

"We have two open investigations,'' Laura Atwood, spokesperson for Animal Control, said Thursday. Animal Control is still trying to determine whether Lippmann's dogs threatened anyone, let alone grabbed anyone. There are no reports of the dogs actually injuring anyone.

The lack of evidence, however, hasn't stopped a whole lot of people from going after Lippmann on Facebook. At last count, the Facebook site Anchorage Fat Bike featured more than 90 posts about Lippmann and her dogs.

And Facebook wasn't the only place Lippmann was getting attention. She and her dogs popped up on cross-country skiing and mountain-bike websites as well.

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"FYI to all skiers, skijor(ers), runners & bikers that use the area around Elmore (Drive) ... There have been more than seven incidents in the last month of a women running with 3 German Sheppard's off leash that have aggressively surrounded or attacked & have bitten at least three people,'' someone with the handle "Kincaider'' posted on MTBR.com. "The owner runs up and acts like nothing is happening and calls the dogs and keeps going. Four of these incidents have been reported to animal control and have case#'s. The women lives and runs a kennel called Perfect Storm Belgians ... that is adjacent to the trails. She is a well know XC skier and Mt runner."

Lippmann is the owner of Perfect Storm Belgians. And the post that indirectly identifies her by business is tame compared to some of the attacks on her by name on Facebook. Cody Lee posted the secondhand information that a friend told him Lippmann "even had to confine (one) female when the skijoring people had their meeting at her house because her dog would try to attack the people in her house."

Lippmann said in an interview with Alaska Dispatch News this week that her dogs -- which look like big, long-haired German shepherds -- are not aggressive, and accusations they have bitten people are untrue.

"It didn't happen,'' she said. "It's either not me, or it's not my dogs. If my dogs had bitten someone, I would be devastated.

"Animal Control, like I said, they've gotten complaints. They came to talk to me about it.'' But, she added, nothing happened because of the lack any evidence indicating her dogs are a threat to anyone.

None of which has quelled the Internet storm in the least. At Anchorage Fat Bike, a public site, there are posted accusations naming Lippmann and claiming that "people and pets are going to the ER from these dogs,'' that "many people are now concerned for the safety of themselves and/or their dogs every time they go out to use the trails in this area,'' and that "if her dogs were bears, they'd have been put down or relocated by now. Having to travel in an Alaskan park with a weapon for protection of dogs, of all things, is ludicrous.''

Privately, Lippmann said, the fallout has been even worse.

"There have been death threats,'' she said. "It's like I'm a child abuser or something. Even worse than (Anchorage Fat Bike) is the thread on Alaska Dog Show News!,'' a private Facebook site. "Everyone on there went crazy, and those people don't even use those trails.''

To top it all off, Lippmann this week lost her job. She thinks it is related to the Internet storm over her dogs. Rebecca Noblin, Lippmann's boss at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that claim is untrue.

"I've heard about" the public blowup," Noblin said. "I read the fat bike forum.'' But, she added, the posts there and Lippmann's dismissal are "absolutely unrelated.''

Lippmann is skeptical.

"The timing is too convenient to not be due to Facebook,'' she said in an email. "No warning. Last year's (positive) performance review came with a raise. I cannot imagine otherwise."

Lippmann doesn't know what to do. Before she got fired, she called the Anchorage Police Department to complain she is being cyberbullied, but the police said there was nothing they could do.

"It's like a witch hunt,'' she said. "I haven't had a chance to defend myself. People are writing about incidents that happened before my dogs were even born.''

She tried to get Facebook to stop the posts, but "Facebook won't do anything,'' she said. "It's out of control. It's just unbelievable. I've been run through the wringer."

Lippmann said she feels like she's become the easy target of blame for anyone with an issue or concern about loose dogs anywhere in Anchorage. The city has an often overlooked and seldom enforced leash laws. As a result, many people have had issues with loose dogs.

"I guess it's fun to vent on someone who can't defend herself,'' she said.

Take the distinctive name plus minor celebrity as a local endurance athlete, couple that to the fact Lippmann has admitted to running with her dogs off-leash in an area now full of regularly used trails, roll in the power of Facebook and you have all the elements for Lippmann to find herself caught in the perfect storm, Belgians-Internet style.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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