Felix had visited the same dog park many times without a problem. But on the afternoon of May 6, 2017, his caretaker said another dog suddenly charged into an interaction, grabbed Felix around the chest and left him with wounds serious enough to require an immediate trip to an emergency veterinary hospital. The other dog’s owner, Tammy Rosenthal, denied that her dog Abby had bitten Felix at all. Yet Judge Judy kept returning to one unusual detail: Tammy barely knew Felix’s caretaker, but she still followed him to the animal hospital and stayed there for about an hour and a half.
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A Routine Visit to Creekside Dog Park
The case centered on Felix, a small dog whose owner had entrusted him to a man identified in the transcript as Mr. Kohler/Kola, who regularly cared for him. He testified that Felix stayed with him approximately one week each month and that whenever he had the dog, trips to the dog park were common. Creekside was not an unfamiliar place for Felix or his caretaker; they had been there many times before.
On May 6, 2017, Mr. Kohler took Felix to the park during the afternoon, arriving around 4 p.m. Several dogs were present. Among them was a miniature pinscher and another dog named Abby, owned by Tammy Rosenthal. Mr. Kohler already recognized Tammy and Abby because he had encountered them at the park approximately a week earlier. That prior familiarity would later matter because the defense disputed whether Abby had actually caused Felix’s injuries.
According to Mr. Kohler, Felix was interacting with the miniature pinscher when the situation suddenly changed. He testified that Abby charged toward Felix and bit him. Abby was substantially larger than Felix — he estimated approximately two and a half times his size — and he described her mouth going around Felix’s chest and right front area. Felix emerged with injuries that Mr. Kohler described as including a four-centimeter laceration to the chest and another wound measuring approximately one centimeter.
The central question was not whether Felix had been injured. The dispute was over which dog caused those injuries.
Felix Is Rushed to an Emergency Veterinary Hospital
Mr. Kohler did not remain at the dog park after Felix was hurt. He immediately sought veterinary care. Because he was holding the injured dog and was understandably occupied with Felix, another friend from the park drove him to an emergency animal hospital.
Tammy did something that would later become one of the most important circumstantial details in the case: she went to the hospital too. According to Mr. Kohler, she arrived approximately 20 minutes later and remained there for around an hour and a half.
At first, Mr. Kohler attempted to characterize Tammy’s behavior as showing that she felt bad about what had happened. Judge Judy immediately stopped him. She was not interested in his interpretation of Tammy’s feelings; she wanted to know exactly what Tammy had said. When pressed, Mr. Kohler acknowledged that Tammy did not explicitly volunteer to pay the veterinary expenses. He had expected the subject of payment to come up, but it did not.
Judge Judy then asked an even more important question: had Tammy actually admitted at the hospital that Abby was the dog that bit Felix? Mr. Kohler initially said yes, but when Judge Judy demanded the exact statement, he could not provide one. Instead, he conceded that he had interpreted Tammy’s conduct — particularly her decision to come to the hospital — as implying responsibility.
That distinction mattered. There was no clear verbal confession from Tammy. Judge Judy therefore had to decide what her actions meant when combined with the rest of the evidence.
Tammy Says Abby Never Bit Felix
Tammy Rosenthal’s defense was unequivocal: Abby did not bite Felix. Tammy agreed that she was at the dog park on May 6 and said she had been sitting with a friend named Judy Stewart when she heard a confrontation among the dogs. She described Abby as a dog that did not like confrontation and said that when she looked toward the commotion, she saw Abby barking near Felix and the miniature pinscher.
Tammy maintained that barking was all Abby had done. According to her account, the miniature pinscher was reportedly in heat and Felix and that dog were interacting in the way dogs sometimes do. Abby apparently reacted to the situation by barking, but Tammy insisted she never saw Abby bite Felix. She also suggested that another person present had not witnessed a bite either.
Tammy explained that she knew where the emergency veterinary hospital was because she had previously taken another dog there. Since the incident occurred on a Saturday, she gave Mr. Kohler directions to the facility. Another man at the park then drove him because he was holding Felix and was upset.
That explained how Mr. Kohler knew where to take Felix. It did not fully answer Judge Judy’s next question: Why did Tammy go there herself?
Judge Judy Focuses on Tammy’s Decision to Follow Them
The courtroom exchange turned sharply when Judge Judy asked Tammy to give her a believable reason why she would follow a man she barely knew to an emergency veterinary hospital if her dog had nothing to do with Felix’s injury.
By both sides’ accounts, Tammy and Mr. Kohler were not close friends. Mr. Kohler said he had first interacted with her roughly a week before the incident. Tammy suggested she might not even have known his name. Another person was already available to drive Felix to the hospital, meaning Tammy was not needed for transportation.
Yet Tammy went anyway and remained for a substantial period of time.
Her explanation was simple: she was concerned and said that was simply the kind of person she was. Judge Judy was visibly skeptical. The judge did not treat Tammy’s hospital visit as an explicit confession, because no direct admission had been established. Instead, she considered it alongside the rest of the circumstances.
Tammy had been at the park with Abby. She heard a confrontation involving the dogs. Abby was off leash. Tammy turned around after hearing Abby bark. Felix was injured during that same encounter. Then, although she barely knew the man caring for Felix, Tammy followed him to the emergency hospital and stayed for approximately an hour.
For Judge Judy, that sequence was difficult to dismiss as coincidence.
The Number of Dogs at the Park Becomes Important
Tammy’s denial also raised another possibility: if Abby did not bite Felix, perhaps another dog did. Judge Judy therefore began examining how many dogs had actually been in the immediate environment.
Mr. Kohler estimated that there were approximately 10 dogs in the vicinity. That might initially seem to create substantial uncertainty about which animal was responsible. But Judge Judy broke the group down more carefully. Felix was one of them. The miniature pinscher was another. Abby was there as well. A witness named Karen had two dogs — a Belgian Shepherd mix and an Australian Chow Chow mix — and Mr. Kohler was familiar with other dogs at the park, including several white dogs Felix regularly interacted with.
The point was not that every dog could be eliminated with scientific certainty. Judge Judy’s reasoning was that this was not a chaotic scene involving dozens of completely unknown animals. Mr. Kohler was familiar with several of the dogs around Felix and specifically identified Abby as the dog that charged and bit him.
Judge Judy also emphasized that Tammy had not been directly controlling Abby at the moment of the incident. Tammy had been talking with Judy while Abby was off leash. She turned her attention toward the dogs because she heard Abby barking. Those facts did not independently prove a bite, but they supported the broader circumstantial picture the court was considering.
No Verbal Admission — But Plenty of Circumstantial Evidence
One of the most important aspects of the case is that Judge Judy did not manufacture a confession that was not in the testimony. Mr. Kohler could not quote Tammy saying, “My dog bit Felix,” and Tammy continued to deny that Abby had bitten anyone. The verdict therefore rested on the circumstances surrounding the injury rather than a direct admission.
Mr. Kohler knew Abby from previous visits to the dog park and testified that he saw her charge Felix. Felix suffered identifiable wounds and was taken immediately for emergency veterinary treatment. Tammy acknowledged being present with Abby and hearing the confrontation. Her dog was off leash, and Tammy’s attention was drawn to the scene when she heard Abby barking.
Then came the hospital visit. Tammy did not simply give directions and go home. She arrived approximately 20 minutes after Felix and stayed for about an hour and a half despite having only recently met the man caring for him.
Judge Judy repeatedly returned to that fact because it made Tammy’s total denial less convincing. Her explanation — that she was simply concerned and that helping was part of her personality — was possible, but the judge had to decide which version was more probable based on all the evidence before her. She sided with Felix’s owner and caretaker.
The Veterinary Bills Establish the Financial Damage
Once Judge Judy had heard enough about the incident, she asked to see the veterinary bills. This was significant because the lawsuit was not based on an arbitrary demand for emotional damages; Felix’s owner had actually paid for medical treatment following the incident.
The transcript identifies the resulting judgment as $1,077. Judge Judy made clear during the hearing that Tammy was going to be responsible for the veterinary expenses, signaling that she had accepted the plaintiff’s account of how Felix was injured.
The case therefore came down to two separate questions. First, did Judge Judy believe Abby was the dog responsible for Felix’s injuries? Second, if so, what documented financial loss resulted? She answered the first question in the plaintiff’s favor and used the veterinary bills to resolve the second.
The result was a full $1,077 judgment for the plaintiff.
Tammy Continues to Deny Abby Was Responsible
Even after the ruling, Tammy did not change her position. Outside the courtroom, she continued insisting that her dog had not bitten anyone. Her post-case comments also referenced physically getting on top of a dog and grabbing it by its harness, while describing her own roughly 100-pound dog as a service dog.
Those comments demonstrate that Tammy remained convinced Judge Judy had reached the wrong conclusion. But they did not change the evidence the judge had already evaluated inside the courtroom.
Judge Judy had heard Tammy’s denial directly. She knew Tammy said she saw Abby barking rather than biting. She also knew multiple dogs had been present. The verdict was not entered because the defense had been ignored; it was entered because the judge found the plaintiff’s identification of Abby more persuasive when considered together with Tammy’s behavior immediately afterward.
That distinction is important when recounting the case. The transcript supports saying that Judge Judy found Tammy financially responsible for Felix’s veterinary bills. It does not support portraying Tammy as having admitted that Abby bit Felix, because she expressly denied it.
Judge Judy Awards $1,077 for Felix’s Vet Bills
Judge Judy ultimately entered judgment for the plaintiff in the amount of $1,077. The ruling reflected her conclusion that Abby was responsible for the injury Felix suffered at the dog park and that Tammy should pay the resulting veterinary expenses.
The case was built largely on circumstantial evidence. Mr. Kohler said he witnessed Abby charge and bite Felix. He already knew which dog belonged to Tammy, reducing the likelihood of simple mistaken identity. Felix was immediately taken to an emergency veterinary hospital with measurable wounds. Tammy acknowledged that Abby had been off leash, that she heard the confrontation and that she turned around when she heard her dog barking.
Most strikingly, Tammy followed Felix and a man she barely knew to the emergency hospital and remained there for approximately an hour and a half. She explained that she did so because she was concerned. Judge Judy was entitled to weigh that explanation against all the other circumstances, and she plainly found the plaintiff’s account more credible.
The dispute shows why dog-park cases can become difficult even when an injury is obvious. Multiple animals may be running freely, owners may see only part of an encounter, and a bite can happen in seconds. Without video footage or an independent witness who saw every moment, the court may have to reconstruct what happened from testimony and conduct immediately afterward.
Here, that reconstruction favored Felix.
Tammy never admitted that Abby caused the injury, but Judge Judy did not need an admission to decide the civil case. After evaluating the identification, the limited group of dogs, Abby being off leash, Tammy’s reaction and the emergency veterinary treatment, she ordered Tammy to cover the loss.
Final judgment: $1,077 for the plaintiff.
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FAQ
What happened to Felix at the dog park?
Felix was at Creekside dog park on May 6, 2017, when his caretaker said Tammy Rosenthal’s dog Abby charged and bit him during an interaction involving another small dog. Felix suffered wounds that required immediate emergency veterinary treatment.
Did Tammy Rosenthal admit that Abby bit Felix?
No. Tammy expressly denied that Abby bit Felix and said she saw Abby barking during the confrontation. The plaintiff initially suggested Tammy’s hospital behavior implied responsibility, but he could not identify a specific verbal admission from her.
Why was Tammy’s trip to the veterinary hospital important?
Judge Judy questioned why Tammy would follow a man she had known for only about a week to an emergency veterinary hospital and remain there for roughly an hour and a half if Abby had no involvement in Felix’s injury. Tammy said she went because she was concerned, but Judge Judy considered the visit as part of the circumstantial evidence.
Were there other dogs at the park?
Yes. Mr. Kohler estimated approximately 10 dogs were in the area, including Felix, a miniature pinscher, Abby, two dogs belonging to a witness named Karen and several dogs Felix already knew. Judge Judy emphasized that the scene did not involve dozens of completely unfamiliar dogs and that Mr. Kohler was familiar with several animals present.
What was Judge Judy’s final verdict?
Judge Judy entered judgment for the plaintiff for $1,077, representing the veterinary expenses connected with Felix’s injuries.
Sources
Judge Judy, including testimony about Felix’s regular visits to Creekside dog park, the May 6, 2017 incident, the alleged bite by Abby, Felix’s chest wounds, the immediate emergency veterinary visit, Tammy Rosenthal’s denial, the approximately 10 dogs present, Abby being off leash, Tammy’s decision to follow Felix to the hospital and Judge Judy’s final $1,077 judgment for the plaintiff. The transcript contains inconsistent automatic-caption spellings of Mr. Kohler/Kola and Rosenthal/Rosenfeld, so uncertain name variants are not treated as separate people.