Dog owner turns down Toronto HydroÂ’s offer

Toronto Hydro Stray Voltage Case details a fatal dog electrocution from a live sidewalk plate on Keele Street, prompting a citywide inspection blitz, upgrades, safety reviews, and ongoing litigation over liability, negligence, and utility accountability.

What price should Toronto Hydro pay for zapping the family pet?

Dusko Avramovic can’t say how much his family should receive after Toronto Hydro’s stray voltage pulsed through a metal sidewalk plate on a Keele St. sidewalk and electrocuted the family’s loyal Labradoodle Mrak in January 2009.

But Avramovic told the Sun he was insulted when Toronto Hydro offered him $500 for “emotional reimbursement” and the cost of buying the family a new dog.

The $500 is the total for all four members of Avramovic’s family including his one son who was walking the dog when he collapsed and Avramovic himself who tried to revive the dog by giving him CPR.

“It’s kind of insulting,” the civil engineer said. “I don’t expect millions. I don’t need the money, give me my dog back and I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

The family does have another dog now, a Black Russian Terrier named Grom — Serbian for thunder.

“We had to take a different one,” Avramovic said, explaining why they didn’t buy another Labradoodle.

Toronto Hydro spokesperson Denise Attallah said the case is in litigation and the utility has not reached a settlement yet.

“The matter is before the courts so we can’t provide any comment,” she said.

Attallah wouldn’t confirm if Toronto Hydro offered $500 to the family.

The death of Mrak, was the second electrocution of a dog in less than two months along Keele St., just south of Dundas St. W., and prompted Toronto Hydro to launch a citywide inspection.

In the wake of the dog deaths along Keele St., Hydro announced it would replace 15,000 steel handwells with ones made from a fibreglass resin.

A few weeks later when several students were shocked by stray voltage while walking down the sidewalk on a school field trip, Hydro launched a multi-million inspection blitz that utilized 600 workers — the largest mobilization in the utility’s history.

When the blitz was completed, Toronto Hydro announced it cost more than $20 million in stray voltage costs overall.

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