Neighbors Say Dog That Attacked Was Gentle

Neighbors of a Santa Ana woman mauled by an 80- to 90-pound dog said they are upset that police killed the dog, which they described as a gentle and friendly stray that had adopted their apartment complex.

Police tracked down and shot the dog Friday after it attacked Tamara Jurjis, who was trying to keep the stray from her own dog, a golden retriever named Cabo.

As police investigated the matter Friday, Jurjis was recovering from her wounds at home. She said she had no doubt that the dog was vicious and trying to attack her.

“I don’t know what would have happened to me if Cabo hadn’t been there. . . . There was no question in my mind he was trying to hurt me, not just my dog,” she said.

Police are seeking the owner of the dog, which had a collar but no tags. Officers have identified it as a bull mastiff-Rottweiler.

The incident comes a week after two dogs, one identified as a mastiff mix, killed a 33-year-old woman in San Francisco.

Neighbors said the dog appeared much smaller than a bull mastiff-Rottweiler and wondered whether that identification has been colored by the San Francisco attack.

“He was really sweet and gentle. . . . If he was so vicious, would I have knelt on my porch with my hand on his collar--with my cat?” said Kelly Williams.

Neighbor Melinda Connaughton said the stray looked like a Sharpei-Rottweiler to her and seemed harmless. “He was a really mellow dude,” she said.

But police and Jurjis told a different story. They said the dog attacked Jurjis and her 13-month-old golden retriever outside the laundry room of her apartment complex.

Jurjis suffered a deep wound on her upper right arm and puncture wounds on her buttocks. Jurjis said the dog first sniffed and then attacked her dog before attacking her.

“I remember screaming a lot and his teeth sinking into my left buttock,” said Jurjis, a 38-year-old Sheriff’s Department forensic specialist.

Police and animal control officers tried to capture the dog at the complex, but the dog bolted, said Sgt. Raul Luna. The dog was spotted from a police helicopter outside a nearby supermarket, and an officer on the ground shot it.

“They didn’t have to kill him,” said Williams. She said she saw the dog attack from her apartment, and “this was your typical fight between two male dogs, with the difference being that somebody happened to be in the middle.”

But police said the shooting was necessary.

“We have not determined whether the officer was threatened by the dog. But the fact is [the dog] couldn’t be contained,” said Santa Ana Police Officer Mario Corona. “Due to what he heard--that it had attacked other people and animals--the officer did what he had to do.”

Carol Beans of Santa Ana, who owns 10 bull mastiffs and is past president of the American Bullmastiff Assn., said that based on information given her by an animal control officer, she doubts that the dog was a bull mastiff or a mastiff mix.

The dog described by police is too small; a male bull mastiff would weigh about 120 pounds, she said. “I’ve owned bull mastiffs for 36 years and never had a violent incident,” she said.

“Don’t get me wrong, there’s no excuse for what the dog did,” Beans said. “It is unacceptable for a dog to harm a human, and it would have had to die one way or the other.

“But believe me, if that dog had wanted to hurt her, she would be a lot more hurt than she is now.”