Fast Growth Spells Sudden Death for Couple’s 2 Dogs

The end was agonizing when Harold Newell’s two pet dogs crawled into his house to die after eating poison tossed into his fenced yard.

Many of Newell’s neighbors living in the hills above Calabasas say the cowardly attack is further evidence that their relaxed, rural life style is ending.

For 60 years, residents of Calabasas Highlands, on the southwestern edge of the San Fernando Valley, barely have had to lock their doors--much less lock up their pets.

The lights of the Valley are only 2 miles away, but crowds and congestion have seemed farther off to those who purchased lots on narrow, meandering lanes with names such as Gladiola, Clover and Lilac.

Problem is, there are 485 of those lots in the half-mile-square Calabasas Highlands.

Things were fine when there were only a handful of cabins and small homes scattered about on the 60-foot-wide lots. A small wooden shelter built by residents at the base of their hill was large enough to handle neighborhood children waiting for the school bus.

Dozens of Homes Planned

These days, there are 140 homes--and dozens of others on drawing boards.

Newell, 79, says there were only a dozen other houses when he built a small dwelling there 21 years ago with his wife, Ruth.

Newell enjoyed walking his 6-year-old German shepherd, Bo, and his smaller mixed-breed spaniel, Raku, 3, along the Highlands’ little lanes.

“Walking with them was therapy for me,” he said. “They weren’t vicious. They never bit anyone. Nobody ever complained to us about them.”

Said Ruth Newell, 77: “They were like our children.”

The dogs died within minutes of each other about 3:30 a.m. Sept. 4. A veterinarian described their symptoms as those of poisoning.

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy and a county animal-control officer helped the Newells scour their yard for evidence but found nothing. Due to a mix-up, the animals’ remains were disposed of before the couple could order an autopsy.

Sheriff’s Lt. Michael Moore said Friday that he knew of no previous animal poisonings in Calabasas Highlands.

Animal-control officials said they have received frequent complaints of loose or barking dogs from the neighborhood. But there is no record of a complaint ever being lodged against the Newells’ dogs, said Lt. Martin Broad of the Agoura animal shelter.

Old-timers in Calabasas Highlands blame the poisoning on pressures coming from sudden growth of the area.

“It’s definitely getting too built-up,” said Margaret Rawls, president of the Calabasas Highlands Homeowners Assn. “Dogs bark and people coming here aren’t used to it. I guess they think nothing of eliminating a dog that bothers them.”

Calabasas Highlands was created in 1927 by ranch owner Sam Cooper and his son, Marx, according to Calabasas historian Beverly Taber. The pair used their own grader to carve the roads. Then they subdivided the lots and sold them to Los Angeles residents looking for a weekend hideaway.

Tiny Cabins

“The first houses were tiny cabins,” Taber said Friday. “They weren’t the huge houses they’re building up there now. I don’t believe what I see being built there these days.”

The development boom has sparked concern by county health officials that private septic systems will soon no longer be able to handle wastes produced in Highlands homes, officials of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District said Friday.

Some property owners may have to pay as much as $30,000 to finance sewer hook-ups, according to county officials who are considering creation of such an assessment district. Preliminary assessment figures have prompted an outcry among some Calabasas Highlands residents, Rawls said.

So have the dog poisonings.

‘Makes Me Sick’

“I’m shocked and scared,” said Lisa Braverman, who is keeping her three dogs indoors. “It makes me sick to think a neighbor would do this.”

Nine-year Highlands resident Lee Thornburg said longtime residents are used to dogs barking. “I can remember times at 6 in the morning all the dogs get going barking, but I can’t imagine anybody would take it so hard,” said Thornburg, who owns a husky.

Neighbor Diane De Oliviera agreed that “there are a lot of dogs up here and they do bark and they do get in dog fights. But if people have a complaint, they should go to the owner and complain.”

And if residents of the new Calabasas Highlands don’t want to complain in person, “they could get their lawyer to do it,” she said.