NewCanaanite.com (https://newcanaanite.com/tag/new-canaan-animal/page/7)
Two New Canaan dogs are in quarantine after biting people here, officials say. A Lhasa Apso drew blood after nipping someone in the leg at the bottom of Elm Street, according to Officer Maryann Kleinschmitt of the New Canaan Police Department’s animal control unit. That happened around 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 25. Given that state law requires two weeks of confinement, that dog will get out on Tuesday.
We caught sight of a Borzoi, or Russian wolfhound, as the leashed animal and its owner walked up Elm Street near Ralph Lauren. Gregory Melnitsky, a Moscow native who speaks excellent English with a thick accent, has had Charles (or “Sir Charles,” Melnitsky said) since puppyhood. Charles hails from Nebraska originally, Melnitsky said. A PhD who immigrated to the United States 25 years ago, Melnitsky said he’s lived in Connecticut for his entire time here. He’d lived in Westport while running a construction mixing materials laboratory for a Fairfield-based company, and moved to New Canaan three years ago.
Animal control officers last week saved the life of a baby possum that had wandered into the dog park at Waveny. Asked whether she remembered a time when an animal had gained access to the fenced-in area, Officer Maryann Kleinschmitt of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control Unit said: “That was the first time in eight years. Other than a dog.”
Responding to a call placed shortly after 3 p.m. on Feb. 28, Kleinschmitt says the dogs at Spencer’s Run likely would’ve killed the young animal if she hadn’t removed it first. It isn’t clear how they missed it.
A rare eastern coyote—offspring of an eastern wolf and western coyote—was spotted (and photographed) in New Canaan up near the Scotts Corner line on Sunday, officials say. The Proprietors Crossing sighting comes on the heels of an active February, in which eight coyotes were spotted in New Canaan, and also follows a “red wolf” sighting in town in December. “This animal is just spectacular,” Officer Maryann Kleinschmitt of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control Unit said of the coywolf, seen at right. The call reporting the sighting came in at about 2:30 p.m. on March 2, police say. Kleinschmitt says she’s hearing that there could be a pair of the animals in northern New Canaan.