Is It Gentle Pet or Vicious Dog? : Courts: Woman says she would rather go to jail than hand her dog over to authorities who might have it destroyed.

Terry Borrell stands by her dog.

Others would say she’s harboring a criminal.

This Doberman pinscher she calls Saint is not, she says, some vicious canine cast by Hollywood as the quintessential guard dog, standing a man’s height on its back legs, frenetically clawing at a chain-link fence, growling like a trapped demon, teeth bared for its next bite of flesh.

Not my Saint, she says. This dog is a pussycat.

But the San Diego County Department of Animal Control thinks differently and wants Saint hauled in for a hearing to determine the dog’s future. The dog is vicious, authorities say, and some dogs are so vicious they have to be destroyed, for the public’s own safety.

Oh yeah? asks Borrell. You’re not getting your paws on my dog, my Saint.

So Terry Borrell has sequestered Saint in hiding and says she’s willing to go to jail for up to six months for refusing to turn the dog over. No way, she says, will she turn traitor on the dog that first belonged to her 26-year-old son--until he was murdered four years ago--and now is her most loyal companion.

Today, the Fallbrook woman will be in Vista Municipal Court as a jury considers whether Borrell has violated county laws by not keeping proper rein on a dog declared vicious.

“I’ve got to do what I feel is right,” Borrell says. “If I’m convicted and ordered to produce the dog, I won’t. I’ll pay the fine. I’ll go to jail. Because it’s just not right to turn in the dog to die.”

The authorities say they haven’t decided the dog’s fate. There first must be a hearing and the dog must be present, to be examined and evaluated by a dog behavior specialist.

But Borrell fears that just bringing the dog to the hearing would seal its fate. She is convinced authorities will keep her dog.

Animal Control officials declared Saint “vicious” in 1988 after a man visiting a neighbor’s home complained that he was threatened twice by Saint--once, when the dog supposedly ripped a piece out of his trousers, and a second time months later when the dog barked so menacingly that the man felt terrorized.

Authorities made their pronouncement: the dog is vicious because it has “shown the disposition, tendency or propensity to attack, bite or otherwise cause injury to a person engaged in a lawful activity” twice in a 48-month period. Keep the dog inside a fence, and if there are any more problems, we’ll see what should be done next, they told Borrell.

A repeat offense allegedly occurred last July, when a meter reader for San Diego Gas & Electric reported to animal control officers that the dog had charged him, making him turn tail for his own safety.

The dog was running loose and not inside a fence, SDG&E; claimed.

That incident sparked two tandem proceedings.

Because Borrell allegedly violated the 1988 terms of the Animal Control Department by not keeping the dog fenced, she must stand trial for a misdemeanor. That’s the case that’s in court and for which a jury will be chosen this morning.

Then, the Animal Control Department, said director Sally Hazzard, must hold a second hearing to decide what to do next with the dog.

For her part, Borrell claims the dog was fenced and that either the meter reader let the dog out by mistake or was simply spooked by the deep-throated barking behind the fence.

Hazzard won’t discuss the specifics of Borrell’s case, but said the new hearing “will take into account the history of the animal and the new incident. We can order the dog out of the county, for instance, or in the other extreme, order the dog destroyed.”

Her department investigates about two cases each week of allegedly vicious dogs. It also sees 6,000 to 7,000 dog-bite cases every year--but most of them are not considered to come from vicious dogs.

Saint, says Borrell and others, hasn’t even bitten anyone.

“He’s a big baby,” says friend Barbara Lee. “He just leans up against you and tries to get you to cuddle with him. I’ve seen him protective--but never mean. And any dog will bark when you come on their property.”

D. Wayne Brechtel, Borrell’s attorney, said he’s had his own “dog behavior expert” evaluate Saint, “and he concluded that the dog doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.”

He said Borrell has offered a compromise to Animal Control authorities: Let Borrell build “a Cadillac dog kennel” for Saint with the stipulation that if the dog is ever outside that kennel, “it can be killed without any hearings.”

“But they said no,” Brechtel said. “They want the hearing, and said they can’t guarantee they won’t decide to have the dog destroyed.”

What irks Borrell, she says, is that when the first hearing was held in 1988--after the one man complained--she was told to be present at 11 a.m. to present her case. She showed up then, she said, but was told the hearing had been at 10 and that she had lost her opportunity to defend Saint, which by 11 a.m. had already been officially declared “vicious.”

Can I appeal it? Borrell wondered.

“They said, ‘Go ahead, but the courts never go against us,’ ” Borrell quoted a bureaucrat’s response.

Since this came just a few months after her son was shot to death at a Fallbrook home where he was the caretaker--the case is still unsolved--Borrell didn’t pursue the matter.

“I wasn’t operating at full capacity,” she said.

She built her fence and thought things were fine--until last July, when the SDG&E; official knocked on her door and said he had notified animal authorities of his complaint.

So, for now, her dog is on the lam, somewhere so far away that she cannot visit it daily.

“My neighbors have told me my reaction is not reasonable,” she said. “They say they don’t think my son, Mark, would want me to go to this extent. They say dogs don’t have souls and wonder why I’m pursuing this.

“But I feel . . . how do I say this? I love this dog. He is important to me. And what’s being done just isn’t right.”

Her attorney agrees that “an intransigent position has been taken by both sides. Neither is compromising.”

“I don’t recommend a client go to jail under any circumstance, but some decisions are made by my clients, not by me,” Brechtel said.

Prosecutor Gary Hoover said this is his first vicious-dog case.

“But what makes this case interesting,” Hoover said, “is that it clearly juxtaposes two competing interests--the individual’s right to own a dog and the community’s right to be protected.”

There’s no issue at all, Borrell says.

“Saint is my closest companion, and I’ll go to jail to protect him,” she said. “And I think some people might understand that.”