On 4 May 1993, a dog named Word was imprisoned at the Seattle Animal Control Shelter after biting multiple women.

He was sentenced to death, but was eventually released on 10 November 2001 to a pet sanctuary where he lived out the remainder of his life.

Locked up in a 9.3 m² (100 ft²) cell for a total of 8 years 190 days, Word set a world record for the longest time on doggy death row.

Word was originally put in puppy penitentiary together with his pawtner in crime, Parshebe, however, she sadly died of breast cancer in 1999.

The pair of black Lhasa Apso-Terrier mix dogs were owned by Wilton Rabon of Seattle, Washington, USA.

Throughout 1991 and 1992, Seattle Animal Control received several complaints that Rabon’s dogs were “menacing tenants of the apartment building,” and the problem was “ongoing.”

In June 1992, Word and Parshebe were detained for the first time after they bit a woman’s leg, inflicting puncture wounds. According to the investigation report, Rabon threatened to “take everybody down with him” when his dogs were impounded.

The dogs were released after a 10-day quarantine, and the case against Rabon was dismissed because the six witnesses failed to attend court.

Unfortunately, it seems that Word and Parshebe never learnt their lesson from this brush with the law, as in May 1993 they bit two more women on two separate occasions.

The first was on 2 May, where one of the dogs bit a woman’s leg twice. Two days later, on 4 May, they struck again; the victim suffered bites on both her legs from both dogs.

Word and Parshebe were apprehended a few hours later and seized, taken to Seattle Animal Control Shelter.

Due to these incidents, Rabon was tried in September 1993 on a criminal misdemeanour charge of unlawfully owning vicious animals. He was found guilty and sentenced to probation and community service.

Rabon appealed the verdict but was unsuccessful, meanwhile Word and Parshebe remained incarcerated.

Two years later, in July 1995, Rabon received a notice of euthanasia from Seattle Animal Control, informing him of the “immediate humane disposal” of his pets.

This sparked off another lengthy legal battle, as Rabon – represented by lawyer Mitzi Leibst – contended that he’d been denied due process regarding the seizure, detention, and decision to kill his dogs.

Leibst also argued that the dogs were not vicious: the bites didn’t break skin and none of the women needed medical treatment, nor did they show up to court.

After appeals at various judicial levels, in 1998 the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that Rabon was entitled to a hearing where he could present the city with reasons why his dogs should be released from death row.

The hearing was held later that year. Ultimately, Seattle Animal Control manager Don Jordan gave Rabon two options: his dogs could either be put to death or sent to a pet sanctuary in Utah, but under no circumstances was he getting them back. This decision was also appealed, prompting further legal action.

Sadly, Parshebe died of breast cancer in 1999 after six years and three months of incarceration.

“There’s hardly a day that goes by I don’t think of Word and how I want to get him out of there,” Rabon later told the Seattle Times.

In April 2000, Mitzi Leibst wrote a letter to Guinness World Records, applying for “some kind of a record” on behalf of Word. At the time, Word had been locked up for seven years.

Leibst wrote: “If one year of a dog’s life is equivalent of 7 years of a human’s life, Word has been incarcerated almost 49 years. This is more time than the infamous Ted Bundy spent on death row in Florida!”

Leibst also contended that Word was a “non-biting look-alike” and “Parshebe was the real culprit.”

“If the dog is sent to Utah, Mr Rabon will never see him again. Presumably, as long as the legal battle continues, Word will languish on doggy death row,” she wrote.

Mitzi Leibst sadly passed away a year later, aged 62, in August 2001.

A few months later, in November, when presented with a hard deadline to decide his dog’s fate, Rabon allowed Word to be released to Pigs Peace Sanctuary.

Fortunately, it was located in Washington, not Utah, meaning Rabon could visit Word, although only occasionally as he didn’t own a car.

Word lived out the rest of his days at the pet sanctuary until his death in 2003, aged 13.

Due to this case, Seattle’s dog-bite law was revised, making the definition of a ‘vicious’ dog less broad. Mitzi Leibst had long argued for this change, believing that other US states would not have imprisoned Word and Parshebe for the “minor nip and run incidents.”