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Harborer or Keeper

To be a "harborer" or "keeper," a person must do more than allow the dog to resort on their premises. Harris v. Turner, 1 Wn. App. 1023, 1030, 466 P.2d 202 (1970). They must treat the dog as living at their house and undertake to control its actions. Shafer v. Beyers, 26 Wn. App. 442, 447, 613 P.2d 554 (1980); Harris, 1 Wn. App. at 1029-31.
In Harris, the court relied on Miller v. Reeves, 101 Wash. 642, 172 P. 815 (1918), which stated:

"A man may own an animal and yet not be its keeper. The word 'keeper' is equivalent to 'the person who harbors.' Harboring means protecting, and one who treats a dog as living at his house, and undertakes to control his actions, is the owner or keeper within the meaning of the law."

The court also quoted from an old English case, M'Kone v. Wood, 172 Eng. Rep. 850 (1831), which held that "the harbouring a dog about one's premises, or allowing him to be or resort there, is a sufficient keeping of the dog . . . ".

The Harris court said:

'We consider the reference to allowing a dog to resort on one's premises to be obiter dictum and not sufficient reason to find that one is a harborer or keeper of a dog. The trial court erred in instructing the jury that the word "harbor" or "harboring" could consist of "allowing the dog to resort about one's premises . . . "

The Harris court also adopted the rule set forth in Restatement of Torts § 514, comment a at 30, 31 (1938):

"[A] person harbors a dog . . . by permitting his wife, son or household servant to keep it in the house or on part of his land which is occupied by the family as a group. On the other hand, the possession of the land on which the animal is kept, even when coupled with permission given to the third person to keep it thereon, is not enough to make its possessor liable as a harborer of the animal. Thus, a father, on whose land his son lives in a separate residence, does not harbor a dog kept by his son therein, although he has the power to prohibit the dog from being kept and fails to exercise the power or even if he presents the dog to his son to be so kept.

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