Pit Bull Is Seized After Woman Says It Attacked Her

Orange County health officials impounded a pit bullterrier in Fullerton on Wednesday after a woman said the dog attacked her while she was walking along the street.

Cynthia Martin, 24, of Buena Park said the dog bit her, knocked her to the ground and bit her again on the leg before a neighbor helped her into his house and warded off the dog.

The owner of the impounded pit bull, Carol Duffin, denied that her dog had attacked Martin. She said that her dog--a 2-year-old female named Brandy--was in the backyard or garage with her son when Martin was bitten and that Smith had mistaken hers for another pit bull that had been in the area.

“I don’t think she’d know the dog,” Duffin said. “There are so many brindle pit bulls.”

But Martin said: “It was the dog.”

The latest wave of fear involving pit bulls, which were originally bred as fighting dogs, was triggered by a fatal Northern California attack June 13 and a nationally televised incident June 22 in which a pit bull bit a Los Angeles animal control officer while TV cameras filmed the attack.

One California city, Livingston, has already prohibited pit bulls, and other cities are considering similar laws.

Martin said she had gone for a walk from her fiance’s house on Candlewood Street when she was scared by two dogs in the 2600 block of Greenhill Drive. She turned away and one of the dogs--a pit bull--attacked her, she said.

The other dog was not a pit bull, she said.

Martin went to St. Jude’s Hospital in Fullerton, where she was treated for bite wounds on her leg and released. She was not seriously injured.

Milan Paule, the neighbor who helped Smith to safety, also said it was Duffin’s dog.

Another neighbor, Marsha Reil, said Duffin’s dog had sometimes chased her husband into her house.

“I think that’s wonderful,” Reil said when she learned that the dog had been impounded at a county animal shelter for five days. “I just hoped it wouldn’t be my 2-year-old someday.”

But Mark Flaherty, yet another neighbor, said he saw two dogs running free Wednesday afternoon--one of which was a pit bull--that were not Duffin’s dogs.

“I put my hand over the fence and told the dogs they shouldn’t be running around,” Flaherty said.

Duffin said her pit bull did bite a little girl about a year ago and was quarantined for five days then too. But the dog is not dangerous, she insisted--as was another dog of hers that she had put to sleep after it attacked someone.

“If I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that it was dangerous, I’d have no qualms about putting her down,” Duffin said. “If we outlaw pit bulls, we’ll have German Shepherds biting, Dobermans biting . . .”