A rural Bloomfield woman is being summoned into court as a result of an investigation by a Greene County sheriff's deputy into a dog bite incident.

A summons was issued earlier today ordering Shyanne Nichole Ferguson, 25, Bloomfield, to appear in Greene Superior Court for an initial hearing on November 7 on a charge of harboring a non-immunized dog, a Class B misdemeanor.

On September 19, Deputy Terry Wade of the Greene County Sheriff's Department responded to the Lawrence Hollow area in eastern Greene County after a man reported he had been bitten by a dark brown dog that belongs at a residence on East McCullough Lane.

According to Deputy Wade, the man said he was headed to his aunt’s house to go fishing but when he walked past the residence on McCullough Lane, several dogs came out into the roadway at him and a dark brown dog bit him on the left lower leg. He sustained three small puncture wounds from that bite but then the same dog bit him a second time and he discharged his handgun to get the dogs to leave him alone.

When Deputy Wade went to the residence on McCullough Lane, he learned Ferguson was the owner of the dogs and she allowed Deputy Wade to take photographs of all of the dogs. She allegedly said the dogs had never acted like that before and they typically stay around the residence or at the neighbor’s but she also allegedly admitted the dogs were not up to date with their rabies shots. Deputy Wade said that under Indiana law, any dog over the age of six months is required to be vaccinated against rabies. Ferguson said the dog suspected of biting the man was six or seven months old.

Deputy Wade returned to talk to the man who had been bitten and he showed him the photos of all the dogs that were at the residence on McCullough Lane. The man was able to identify a brown mixed breed dog as the dog that bit him. That dog, according to Ferguson, is six or seven months old and goes by the name of Sugar.