Pit Bull Attacks, Hurts Investigator From D.A.’s Office

A pit bull attacked an investigator for the Orange County district attorney’s office Wednesday, sending the man to the hospital with serious injuries to his left hand, police said.

Armando Acedo, who was investigating a case for the county’s welfare fraud unit, had just entered the front yard of a Fullerton home when three dogs--two of them pit bulls--suddenly appeared, Fullerton Police Sgt. Kevin Hamilton said.

At least one of the dogs attacked Acedo, prompting a fierce struggle, Hamilton said. At one point, he said, Acedo fired his gun in the air in an apparent attempt to frighten the dog away.

Acedo managed to back out of the yard and a woman who lived at the home on East Truslow Avenue gave him a towel to wrap his wound. Although the attack lasted only a few moments, Hamilton said it resulted in severe wounds to Acedo’s left index finger and thumb.

“It’s the most serious dog bite I’ve ever seen,” Hamilton said.

Both of the year-old pit bulls involved in Wednesday’s attack have been quarantined by the Orange County Animal Control Unit. The dogs were unlicensed and had not been vaccinated, Hamilton said. The third dog at the home was a puppy of unknown breed.

The attack came 10 days after a pit bull fatally mauled a 14-month-old boy in South Los Angeles.

In Orange County, such attacks occur about five times a year, said Kevin Whelan, an officer with the county’s animal control unit. “Basically, there are 43 dogs on our vicious dog list, and 10 of them are types of pit bulls or pit-bull mixes,” he said.

Though the frequency of dog attacks has not increased, Whelan said, the public’s awareness and fear of vicious animals has skyrocketed in the wake of the publicity after incidents such as the Los Angeles mauling.

“It seems like we’re getting more calls,” Whelan said. “When people see a pit bull, they’re more afraid of it than in the past.”

In his 25 years as an animal control officer, Whelan said, he is aware of only one other incident in which an Orange County public official has been mauled by a pit bull. An animal control officer lost her finger in an attack several years ago, he said, but “she has returned to work full time.”

Whelan recommended that anyone seeing a stray dog of any kind report it immediately to county animal control officers. And when confronted by a potentially aggressive dog, he said, “stand upright and talk to the dog in a firm deep voice so that he will treat you as his master. Basically, what they’re doing is sizing you up--you must create a dominance over the dog.”

Animal behavior experts say that pit bulls have been trained and bred for hundreds of years to be aggressive.

In his book “Dogs on the Couch: Behavior Therapy for Training and Caring for Your Dog,” Laguna Hills animal behaviorist Larry Lachman writes: “The pit bull, like other large dogs bred for fighting and guarding, has a natural proclivity toward aggressive behavior.”

As early as the 1600s, Lachman writes, pit bulls were used to fight larger animals and armored men, and in 18th and 19th century England they were used in a blood sport called bull-baiting in which two or three dogs would fight a tethered bull or bear to the death.

What makes pit bulls especially dangerous, Lachman writes, is their propensity for ignoring pain, attacking at signs of submission by other animals or people, and using their molars and jaws to “lock” on to a victim without letting go.