Six-month-old Bear was killed at a Barrington dog park.

Photo courtesy of Kristyn Sousa

BARRINGTON — Lexus, the greyhound that killed a puppy at a local dog park this fall, has been classified as a vicious dog and returned to a New York adoption agency.

At a recent vicious-dog hearing, a panel ordered the 70-pound greyhound to be confined to a six-sided enclosure and required his owner, Albert Lee of East Providence, to purchase $100,000 worth of liability insurance, according to Police Chief John LaCross.

At the hearing, a representative from the Twin River slot parlor and greyhound racetrack in Lincoln, said she had told Lee that the greyhound should always be leashed and never permitted to run free at a dog park. Lee successfully petitioned the panel to return Lexus to the greyhound adoption organization from which he was adopted six weeks before the attack occurred.

LaCross said the lesson learned from this incident is that dog owners should exercise common sense when bringing dogs to a dog park, especially if the animal hasn’t been exposed to pack behavior. The chief also suggested that dog parks are not a good place to bring small puppies.

The puppy’s owner, Kristyn Sousa of Attleboro, said she had taken her Pomeranian-poodle mix to the dog park in Haines Park on Sept. 7 because she wanted a safe place for her puppy to socialize with other dogs. Ten minutes later, Lexus attacked Sousa’s dog, Bear, biting it in the neck. Sousa and her boyfriend were quickly surrounded by a pack of dogs and it took several minutes before the greyhound finally released her pet.

lborg@projo.com