Defendant Will Please Heel--and No Barking

The hearing had all the appearances of a courtroom drama.

Each side was represented by an attorney. Witnesses were called to testify under oath. Each side was admonished against further emotional outbursts.

The defendants, however, were not there. They were caged at the East Valley Animal Shelter.

Three pit bulls accused of attacking a 10-year-old Lake View Terrace boy in January were the subjects of the hearing, among the first to be held under a law passed by the Los Angeles City Council a year ago.

The law, approved after a rash of pit bull attacks in California, allows the city to impound dogs that bite people and to destroy the animals in the worst cases. It also permits the city to impose restrictions on owners of dogs that bark excessively.

After six months of hearings, animal control officials say the law has enabled the city to respond more swiftly to the 8,000 reports of dog bites and 5,000 barking-dog complaints filed each year in Los Angeles.

But many pet owners who have gone through the hearings criticize the process as too formal and intimidating.

Rights Are Read

“I was just floored when he read me my Miranda rights,” said Nancy S. Ettl, an Encino attorney and dog owner, referring to an animal control officer who summoned her to a barking-dog hearing.

So far, 121 hearings have been held--67 for barking dogs and 54 for complaints about suspected dangerous animals. Nine dogs have been ordered destroyed, including one that bit people on eight occasions.

Officials have not kept full statistics on the results of the cases, but an examination of the files shows that some pet owners--including the ones whose dogs were ordered destroyed--have been prohibited from owning another animal in Los Angeles for three years.

In other cases, dogs have been cleared of allegations that they are vicious, but nonetheless have been ordered removed from the city “due to the negligent, unsafe manner in which they were maintained.” Similar to procedures used with paroled convicts, animal control officials in the dog’s new home area must be notified of the animal’s history.

In most cases, however, the dog owners have been given a second chance. They were told to install fences and warning signs, muzzle their dogs or put them through obedience school. Owners who refuse can have their pets taken away and can be charged with a misdemeanor.

“Criminals don’t even do as much time as my dogs have done,” complained Gerri Garcia of Lake View Terrace, whose three pit bulls have been impounded since the Jan. 4 attack on the 10-year-old boy.

“You don’t just take a pet and destroy him,” said Barbara Lederman of Van Nuys, who is appealing an order for one of her Lhasa apsos to be destroyed and two others to be removed from the city. “I don’t think that is fair.”

Four Attacks Told

Authorities say Lederman’s dogs attacked people four times while running loose, once biting an 84-year-old woman 10 times. Lederman acknowledged two of the attacks, but said her dogs may have been provoked.

“These are not exactly killer dogs,” said Lederman, who got an animal behaviorist to testify that they have “reasonably good dispositions.”

Animal control officials say the process still is in its infancy and problems are being worked out. For example, the city is investigating one instance in which a dog was put to death without any finding that it was vicious.

Nevertheless, “it’s an improvement over what we had,” said Dr. William Putney, a veterinarian who serves on the Animal Regulation Commission, a citizen advisory panel. “Before, it took months and months to get any kind of hearing. Now, we’re getting reasonably prompt hearings and confronting the issues head-on.”

Putney, who trained dogs during World War II to sniff out enemy troops for the Marines, defends the destruction of some dogs. “There are incorrigible animals, just as there are incorrigible people,” he said. “And society needs a method to protect itself from them.”

Before the law went into effect, the city’s only recourse for dealing with a vicious dog was to get a court order to destroy the animal. That procedure was rarely used because it was long and costly and “putting a dog to death is not the way to handle most dog problems,” said Robert Rush, general manager of the city Department of Animal Regulation.

Now officials can impound a dog immediately after an attack.

Rush said the decisions on whether to hold a hearing--and to destroy a dog--are based on whether the attack was provoked, the severity of the bite, the animal’s history, whether the dog was permitted to run loose and “whether the dog can be effectively trained to change its temperament.”

“In all of the cases, severity is there,” he added. “It isn’t just a little nip.”

Officials attempt to resolve barking-dog complaints before they reach a hearing--first sending the pet owner a warning letter, then asking for an informal meeting if there is another complaint.

The hearings, which have lasted as long as 16 hours over two days, are conducted at an animal shelter by a Department of Animal Regulation employee trained in administrative law and animal behavior. A uniformed animal control officer acts as the prosecutor, calling victims or witnesses to testify. The dog owner, or his attorney, cross-examines the witnesses and presents the defense.

The examiner makes a recommendation to Rush, who can dismiss the case, impose restrictions or order the animal’s destruction. His decision can be appealed to the Animal Regulation Commission, and then to the City Council. There are more than two dozen appeals pending before the council, however, and it has yet to hear a single one. The council is expected to change the law to make the commission the final appeals body.

Some dog owners also have vowed to take their cases to court if they lose before the council.

A dog need not attack a person to be ordered destroyed or banished from the city. One pit bull was ordered out of the city after it bit a horse several times and chased the animal through a Sylmar neighborhood.

Although records of dog bites show that no single breed attacks more than others, many of the cases have involved pit bulls, which are known for their powerful jaws and tendency to hang on when they bite.

Garcia, whose three pit bulls are accused of attacking the 10-year-old and who has spent close to $4,000 in legal fees defending the dogs, contends that her pets are victims of “pit bull hysteria.”

“My dogs are very lovable animals,” she said, saying that she has cared for children in her home with the dogs present.

Attacked as He Played

Animal control officers say 10-year-old Michael Degraphenreed Jr. was attacked as he was climbing a rope in front of his home. The pit bulls bounded out of Garcia’s yard next door and charged toward him. The boy scurried up the rope, but one of the dogs leaped into the air and locked its jaws on the boy’s buttocks, officers say, causing a wound that required 30 stitches.

After eight hours, hearing examiner James Connelly recommended that the pit bulls be ordered out of the city and that the Garcias be prohibited from owning dogs for three years.

“I personally observed these dogs on several occasions during their confinement at the East Valley Animal Shelter, and all three dogs displayed aggression to strangers without provocation,” he said. “This aggression included baring their teeth, raising their hackles, growling and jumping against the kennel fencing.”

Connelly recommended against the animals’ destruction, however, saying they had no history of biting and that the boy probably contributed to the attack through “a history of agitation,” including teasing and rock throwing.

The proceeding has taken an unusually long time--a second hearing was ordered because of a “technical error” at the first one--and there has been no final ruling. Garcia said she worries that her dogs’ long confinement will cause them psychological damage.

The hearings can be intense, said hearing examiner Richard Felosky, a 20-year employee of the Department of Animal Regulation who has found himself in the middle of bitter neighborhood squabbles. He has had to order people out of the room because of outbursts.

Felosky said dog owners accused of violating the law are read their rights “to let them know that it is a serious matter.”

Often, the bite victims and the dog owners are represented by attorneys. Evidence may include ripped clothing, photographs of wounds, recordings of barking and logs of sleepless nights. At a recent hearing before Felosky, a 9-year-old Eagle Rock girl showed the scars on a leg where she was bitten by a German shepherd.

“Did you see the sign on the gate?” the dog’s owner asked her in his cross-examination. “It says, ‘Beware of Dog.’ ”

“No,” the girl replied.

But the prosecution then brought forward a neighbor who said the shepherd had killed her Chihuahua, and a mailman, who testified that he was bitten by another dog living at the same house.

The owner, in turn, called his teen-age daughter to the witness stand. “When my friends come over, we always play with the dogs,” she said. “They have never done anything to hurt us.”

A decision is pending.