WARNING FOR THOSE CONSIDERING TAKING THEIR DOG AND/OR CHILD(REN) TO TRES SABORES

Yesterday, we tasted at Tres Sabores, bringing our 4.5 month old golden retriever puppy, Cody. Of course, Cody was on-leash and supervised during the entire time of our stay. During our tasting, we toured the garden and saw the lambs, and on our way back to the grove where we were tasting, we ran into 3 Tres employees and an unleashed black lab. We asked if the dog was friendly and if Cody could say hello. They said yes, and we let Cody do his usual dog sniffs and tail wags to greet the black lab. About a second after Cody was greeting, the lab showed his teeth and we immediately jerked Cody away, realizing the dog was aggressive. The lab (who is full grown and about 70+ pounds compared to our 30 pound pup) pounced on Cody, bit him, and pinned him to the ground. Cody’s dad had to pull the lab off by the collar, while the 3x Tres employees, one of which we were later made aware was the lab’s owner, stood by doing absolutely nothing.

Cody was immediately drenched in his own blood and crying like we’ve never heard before. We immediately removed Cody from the situation and ran back to our picnic table, preparing to rush him to the vet for stitches. The rest of our party who heard Cody’s cries came running over, and when they asked the Tres employees (who were still just standing there) if everything was okay, they were told everything was fine.

Back at the picnic table, another Tres employee came up to us while Cody was gushing blood and asked if we were okay. Clearly not okay, we had to ask for paper towels, soap and water, as well as the dogs owner. The lack of empathy at sense of urgency was heart breaking.

The owner(s) of the dog (the associate wine maker as well as the owner of the winery separately claimed to be the owner of the dog, so it was unclear and ambiguous) finally did come out and apologized. While I hope it was sincere, the owner of the winery / alleged co-owner of the lab, Jon, continued to make light of the situation, asking us where we got Cody while we were focused on cleaning his wounds. He also said “I certainly hope this doesn’t happen again.”, which is absolutely negligent as a business owner. You should ENSURE this doesn’t happen again by taking the proper and responsible precautions.

While dogs are ultimately wild animals and out-of-character attacks can happen, the blatant negligence, irresponsibility, and lack of compassion is what is most upsetting. As a business, you have a responsibility to ensure the safety of your guests to the best of your ability and that is not what the team at Tres Sabores is currently upholding.

As both a business and dog owner, it is your responsibility to keep your dogs supervised and leashed to ensure safety to the best of your ability. While this situation was extremely traumatic, we can only imagine how much worse it would have been if the victim was a child.

While we ultimately have no control over the actions Tres Sabores will take, we hope this helps make our community aware in the hopes that this never happens to others.

- Cody’s Mom and Dad

Jun. 12, 2022