County Expected to OK a Review of Rules Governing Vicious Dogs

In the wake of increasing reports of pit bullterrier attacks, Orange County animal control authorities are planning to reexamine regulations governing aggressive dogs.

The Board of Supervisors is expected Tuesday to direct the Health Care Agency to begin a “comprehensive review” of its ordinances to determine whether they adequately protect the public from aggressive dogs.

The proposed review comes at the request of Supervisor Harriett Wieder in response to incidents such as a recent one in Huntington Beach in which a pit bull hadn’t bitten anyone “but had terrorized the neighborhood,” said Wieder’s aide, Gary Carlisle.

In that case, animal control authorities last month declared a female pit bull, Phoenecia, “vicious” after about two years of neighbors’ complaints that it had attacked other animals and forced residents in the family-filled neighborhood to take refuge in their homes and cars whenever the dog and her pair of year-old puppies were loose.

The county ordered the owner to keep the dog restrained behind locked gates, posted with “beware of dog” signs. The owner has since moved from the Spar Circle home to another Huntington Beach neighborhood.

The three women who fought to have Phoenecia declared “vicious” no longer fear for the safety of their own neighborhood, but they worry that the county’s planned review of dog ordinances does not go far enough and won’t help to prevent such incidents before someone gets hurt.

Calling themselves “Concerned Citizens for Dog Law Revisions,” Shirley Carey, Maggie Warren and Paulette Lloyd say the county needs to change its basic attitude about dog control.

“We want major, major philosophical changes,” Carey said. “The administration needs to act to prevent these crises, rather than waiting and treating them after the fact.”

Dr. Nila Kelly, chief of the county’s veterinary services, said the dog regulations would not be “rewritten” as much as they would be “tightened.”

“Our existing law is good, but this new way of doing it would be a little better,” she said.

Kelly said revisions would more clearly define how animal control officers can respond to complaints of aggressive dogs. Currently, vicious dogs fall under the category of “dangerous and exotic animals.” Under the new regulations, she expects that “vicious dogs” would be in a category by themselves.

They also may add the category “public nuisance,” to give them the means to deal with dogs that are chronically roaming at large, chewing through fences, continually barking or engaging in other annoying behavior.

The revised ordinances--which would be presented to supervisors for action within 60 days under Wieder’s proposal--would affect dogs in cities that contract with the county for animal services, as well as dogs in unincorporated county areas.

While the revised regulations are not aimed specifically at pit bulls, Kelly admitted that “the motivating factor is the publicity about pit bulls.”

In addition to the Huntington Beach case, there have been other incidents in the county recently.

Woman Bitten in Fullerton

In Fullerton, a woman was knocked down and bitten on the leg while walking along a street earlier this month.

In San Clemente, which has its own animal control agency, the owner of a pit bull won a reprieve for her pet by posting a $1,000 check Friday. The dog named Ugly, which had scaled two six-foot fences to attack and kill an English sheep dog, had been scheduled to be put to sleep Saturday. The owner now must come up with $10,000 more by Wednesday to keep the dog alive.

Lloyd, Warren and Carey say they founded Concerned Citizens for Dog Laws out of the frustration of battling for two years to get action in their own neighborhood, despite repeated complaints about the neighborhood pit bull.

Parents were reluctant to let their children outside if the dog and her puppies were loose because the animals were so threatening, Warren said.

Once, Warren said, when she was nine months’ pregnant, the dog chased her into her garage, pinned her there and could have severely injured her if it had knocked her down. She notified authorities after the dog was called away, but because the animal had returned to its own property and no longer was roaming free, an animal control officer told her nothing could be done, she said.

Even after the owner of the newly declared vicious pit bull moved, Warren said the response of animal control officers was lax. The authorities did not know the new address until the women notified them. Warren said there were several days when the owner was not complying with the county’s restrictions in the new neighborhood, which also is filled with children.

“My problem has been solved; the owners don’t live here any more. But I can’t let them go, knowing they could do somebody else a great deal of harm,” Warren said. “The puppies are the product of indiscriminate breeding. The red flags are waving. Those dogs are waiting to go off.”

‘Deep From the Gut’

Rewriting the aggressive dog ordinance “is not enough. If changes ever are going to happen, they’ll have to come deep from the gut,” Warren said.

A Health Care Agency official denied Warren’s charges, saying that animal control officers know the new address of the pit bull owner, and when they checked on the dog Thursday, the owner was in full compliance. David Yorba, brother of the dog’s owner, Rob Yorba, said Friday that the family is complying with the animal control restrictions and is contemplating legal action against the three women for harassment.

Fired up by their own experience, the Huntington Beach dog law activists sent out surveys to animal control agencies throughout the state and researched guidelines governing aggressive dogs throughout the nation. They compiled their information and recommendations in a letter to Orange County Animal Control and sent copies to officials of cities contracting with the county animal services agency, in an effort to promote more public discussion.

The activists want fees to be increased to truly penalize the owners of aggressive dogs, instead of merely imposing restrictions on the dogs. They also say that more follow-up is needed in cases where action has been taken, to ensure that a dog owner is complying with restrictions.

The women also advocate a new “public nuisance” classification to give animal control officers a means to deal with dogs that may not be threateningly aggressive but that are still interfering with the rights of people by intimidation, continual barking, the fouling of property or being allowed to run loose repeatedly.

They also recommend that the “vicious dog” classification be changed to include animals that show a propensity to cause injury and that a hearing board be established so that neighbors and the dog owners could present evidence that an animal should be declared a nuisance or vicious.

Other Measures Urged

Such a hearing board also should be able to impose such restrictions as requiring the owner to carry $100,000 in liability insurance, having the dog wear a conspicuous collar or tag identifying it as dangerous, or ordering the owner and dog to attend animal training classes.

Answering the Huntington Beach activists’ criticisms that ordinance revisions must be accompanied by a philosophical change, Leonard Foster, the county’s deputy director of public health, said such a shift would require staffing that the agency does not have.

“One way to attack the problem is to have more strict enforcement of the leash law, and that takes manpower. If you have limited resources in manpower, you have to devote that manpower on a priority basis,” Foster said. That means when there is a complaint, an officer likely will not respond in time to witness the incident, he added.

“To be able to do that, you’d have to have extensive patrolling. And given our staffing levels, that’s a luxury we cannot afford,” he declared.

The Concerned Citizens for Dog Law Revisions’ cause already has caught the attention of Huntington Beach Councilwoman Ruth Finlay, who wants the council to authorize a letter to the county tonight, encouraging a review of the dog regulations.

Finlay said she has no specific recommendations but knows from personal experience how a vicious dog can terrorize people.

Last year, while vacationing with her family in Saginaw, Mich., Finlay’s sister was attacked by a pit bull. Her sister was freed from the dog’s grip only when a mail carrier who was in the neighborhood used a can of Mace on the animal. Her sister’s ankle required 10 stitches and was extremely sore and swollen, she said.

Dog Was Surrounded

“It was a drama in itself, when that dog was loose and it attempted to attack a couple of people,” Finlay said. The dog was surrounded by people and cars until the police came, and even the officers did not want to get out of their units, she said. “It was an amazing sight, two police cars, two firemen and everyone, all for one little dog.”

That case may have happened far away, but Finlay said there are lessons in it for Orange County. “Controls for dogs that are potentially attackers or vicious are necessary.

“What I saw was not only the potential for human injury and harm, but also the cost. There were three departments of the city involved, all contending with one dog,” Finlay said. “This case could have happened in any city.”