Dog law gets some extra bite

Dogs that attack horses, cows and other livestock will soon be designated as "potentially dangerous."

Spurred by the recent fatal pit bull attack on a 63-year Antelope Valley woman, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to make it easier to take action against lethal canines by broadening the legal definition of a “potentially dangerous dog.”

The new definition, particularly significant in rural parts of the county, allows serious attacks on livestock—including horses, cows, alpacas, chickens and rabbits—to qualify a dog as “potentially dangerous” under county animal control laws. The current ordinance authorizes that classification only if the dog has moderately injured a person, forced a person to take defensive action more than once in 36 months or severely injured or killed a dog or a cat.

Restrictions for a potentially dangerous dog can range from requiring the animal to be leashed and muzzled in public to mandating that the owner take out liability insurance and keep the dog inside or in a secure, county-inspected yard.

Animal control officers contend that the amended criteria might have made a life-and-death difference in the case of Pamela Devitt, who was jogging in the Antelope Valley community of Littlerock in May when four pit bulls attacked her on the street. Fatally mauled, Devitt died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. The owner, 29-year-old Alex Jackson, is in custody and facing homicide charges.

Of the eight dogs confiscated from his home, four were euthanized, said Animal Care and Control Director Marcia Mayeda. The other four—two pit bulls, a Labrador-collie mix and an Australian heeler mix—were taken in by a rescue group and placed in homes.

“We’d had complaints about these dogs and had been out to the house twice,” Mayeda said. But the dogs were not in sight, she said, and the owner had insisted the complaints involved strays, not his dogs.

Just three weeks before Devitt’s death, however, a woman had complained that the pit bulls had come after her and her horse, Mayeda said. She said the complaint was serious enough that the department had asked her to complete a sworn affidavit.  

“We were still waiting for her statement when the attack on Mrs. Devitt happened,” Mayeda said. “Had we had this law on the books, we could have just declared those dogs potentially dangerous and restricted them.”

The new definition is part of an intensified county focus on the problem of dangerous dogs. About one call in ten to the Department of Animal Care and Control—about 10,000 annually—involve dogs that are aggressive and biting. Packs of abandoned dogs have become an increasingly vexing issue in the high desert and other semi-rural areas. Earlier this year, the Board of Supervisors approved $3.5 million in new spending on animal control.

So far this year, Mayeda said, the county has conducted more than 400 hearings to determine whether a dog is vicious or potentially dangerous. Most of those cases, she said, ended with the dog being restricted. More than half have involved pit bulls.

Posted 9/6/13