Family behind dangerous-dog law faces attack on daughter in Kurtistown

Penny Matson’s bike ride through Hawaiian Acres ended with a broken collarbone and a hard question for Hawaii County: if the state has a tougher dangerous-dog law now, why are children still getting chased by loose dogs in Kurtistown?

The 12-year-old was riding on Mother’s Day when a dog chased her in the Hawaiian Acres subdivision. The animal hit her bike, sent her to the ground and left her with a broken collarbone. Shannon Matson said an uncle nearby stopped the dog before it could bite her daughter.

That injury landed on a family that had already been shaped by a fatal attack. Shannon Matson became a public advocate after her father, Bob Northrop, was killed by four dogs in Ocean View on Aug. 1, 2023. Police said the 71-year-old was attacked on Outrigger Drive while walking to a friend’s house. The family later helped push Act 224, the 2024 state law that strengthened penalties for owners of dangerous dogs.

Act 224 defines a dangerous dog as one that, without provocation, causes a bite injury to a person or another animal. It also makes an owner liable for negligent failure to control the animal if a bite injury occurs, or if the owner fails to take reasonable measures and the attack leads to injury, maiming or death. The law says breed cannot be used to determine whether a dog is dangerous, a point lawmakers tied to Hawaii’s wider problem with loose dogs that behave aggressively, including feral, abandoned and poorly controlled animals.

The county had already moved before the state acted. Hawaii County Ordinance 22-36, adopted in 2022, created a distinct dangerous-dogs division in the county code. Then the Hawaii County Animal Control and Protection Agency became an official county agency on July 1, 2023, giving the island a centralized animal-control authority.

Even so, Northrop’s case showed how enforcement can lag behind tragedy. In January 2025, Matson called the charges against the dogs’ owners “completely insignificant and insufficient” and said the case should have been treated as a felony. The county prosecutor said he could not use the stronger 2024 felony law because the fatal attack happened before the law took effect. The dogs’ owners, Kalani Burgher and Keli Toyama, were later charged on July 31, 2024, by penal summons booking with negligent failure to control a dangerous dog, a petty misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine under the older county framework.

The broader numbers show the problem did not stop with one case. Big Island dog-bite reports rose from 87 in 2019 to 279 through November 2023. For families in rural subdivisions like Hawaiian Acres, where bikes, sidewalks and driveways often sit close to open roadways, the next attack can begin before neighbors, police or animal control have time to act.