Man Bites Dog

There are roughly 500,000 dogs in L.A. County, and at any given moment about half of them are in some kind of trouble.

If they aren’t being chased from parks or arrested for fouling the city streets, they’re being sacrificed by satanists or pursued by those who enjoy a tasty dog-kabob occasionally.

They are also, if you believe the animal activists, being subjected to untold indecencies all over town by mad scientists attempting to make a name for themselves at the expense of you-know-who.

All this is occurring despite the fact that canis familiaris has been man’s best friend for 14 centuries; reason enough, I suppose, why tiger sharks and grizzly bears have never bothered to curry man’s favor.

The purpose of today’s column, however, is not to cheer dog cruelty but to explore the question of whether or not it is ever justifiable to commit violence against your neighbor’s schnauzer.

Only once have I felt hostility toward a dog beyond a simple desire to kick its teeth in for knocking over my garbage can. That was when, for no reason, a doberman came at me with murder in its eyes.

I was in the yard pushing a wheelbarrow and fended off the animal by swinging the device at his head until he left, drooling in frustration.

It is impractical, however, to be armed with a wheelbarrow at all times, so then what is one supposed to do to protect against a dog with a bad attitude?

For at least one answer, I take you to Littlerock, a speck of a settlement near Palmdale, where the erotic intentions of Roscoe the Great Dane were short-circuited recently by a load of buckshot, or possibly a .22-caliber rifle, depending on who you believe.

The fact that Roscoe’s owner, Cindy Vasquez, is an attractive former nude dancer had nothing to do, by the way, with my having braved the desert heat and a long, hum-drum drive to reach Littlerock.

Rather, I was telephoned by state Humane Officer Barbara Fabricant, who, informed of Roscoe’s fate, said she was sick and tired of living creatures being shot in the pursuit of sex. I feel the same way.

Littlerock, tucked as it is among the Joshua trees, is the kind of place where dogs and guns abound, but usually in more placid coexistence than the incident that has aroused the neighborhood around 92nd Street and Avenue T-4.

An occasional rattlesnake or a burglar might get shot due to their insufferable intentions, but usually not a dog.

At any rate, it seems that Roscoe broke free one night to visit a neighbor dog in heat and came home somewhat the worse for having followed his heart, or whatever it is dogs follow.

Vasquez says it was determined that Roscoe was shot, possibly with a .22-caliber rifle. The trail of blood led to the home of Robb Loebach, owner of a Queensland heeler whose sexual magnetism was said to have lured Roscoe into trouble in the first place.

Loebach won’t talk, but his wife, Sara, says Roscoe wandered into their garage two days earlier and, for no reason, bit her husband on the leg.

This naturally made the Loebachs suspicious of Roscoe’s presence thereafter, and when he returned to allegedly savage their own dog, Robb let go not with a .22, Sara says, but with a load of bird shot.

Roscoe, abruptly loveless, survived, but Robb is being charged with cruelty to animals and is in turn suing Cindy for possessing an animal “of vicious propensities.”

I’m not in favor of random violence against dogs, but even animal control officers will tell you that some form of protection is valid when set upon by an animal who weighs more than your kids.

Roscoe tops 100 pounds and may be as gentle as a darter snail under normal circumstances. But love does strange things to a male of any species. Teen-age boys, for example, who will not walk across the street for a job will brave a sea of alligators to get to a girl with a nice behind.

Fabricant says the only legal justification for shooting a dog is if he is attacking your livestock and “a Queensland heeler sure as hell doesn’t look like a cow.”

That may be so, but even in this age of heightened awareness toward the fate of animals, humans count too and if the latter are threatened by the former, guess who God intended to win? I can tell you now that if that doberman ever comes at me again, he’s going to get a wheelbarrow over his head, whether or not my cow is in peril.