Time to toughen county policy on dog attacks
Imagine you have been mugged, your wallet or purse taken, your face bruised, your dignity shaken. Now imagine that the police, having cornered the suspect, merely dust him off and drive him home.
You are justifiably incredulous. What, you ask, is going on? Policy, the police chief answers. A thug must be caught in the act two or three times before he can be prosecuted.
Now imagine that your leg is in the viselike jaws of an 80-pound dog that's just bounded into your garden unprovoked. When the animal control officer arrives, you point out the home of the marauding dog because you know it well -- half the people on your street know it. And imagine the officer's response: One bite isn't cause enough for the county to take meaningful action.
The first scenario is pure fiction; the second is not. Unattended dogs have been inflicting pain and misery all over western Kern County, and county policy is routinely preventing animal control officials from doing much about it.
Ask Carol Knapp about marauding dogs. A pair of pit bulls walked in through her open front door early one morning last June and snatched her beloved, slumbering cat right off its favorite rug. They killed her Molly behind some trees in the front yard and faced no consequences.
Ask JoAnn Mayfield, whose miniature dachshund was mauled to death in its own backyard by a neighborhood pit bull in October. Mayfield heard a commotion and ran to the back door to find the pit bull shaking her Tucker "like a rag doll." The culprit was apprehended but released to its owner a few hours later. One of Mayfield's neighbors reports having see the same pit bull attempting to chew through her French doors in an effort to get at her dogs.
Ask Pat Glenn, who was attacked by a pair of pit bulls while standing on her own front porch in July. One latched onto her leg, disengaged and then attacked a young man waiting for a bus near Glenn's house. The same pair attacked a small dog in the alley behind her home, and were probably responsible for killing several cats in the neighborhood. And they're still at it.
"An older lady my age walks her small dog right around in this area," Glenn said. "I worry about her. She wouldn't have a chance."
The county's dog-bite ordinance requires that the dog must have been declared "dangerous" or "vicious" following an earlier documented incident. Yes, the first bite is a freebie. The first verifiable bite, that is.
If an animal control officer or another public safety employee must witness an attack, "convictions" will be few and far between: The ordinance, as written, is practically unenforceable.
At least one member of the Kern County Board of Supervisors seems to have acknowledged that possibility. Third District Supervisor Mike Maggard has asked county staff members to review the dog-bite policy. "I have a growing concern that our policies are not strong enough," Maggard wrote in a letter, specifically expressing concern about bites that occur on the victim's own property.
"I am becoming increasingly concerned that areas I represent within the city limits are unprotected when it comes to vicious dog attacks," Maggard wrote.
The problem is especially bad in Maggard's district, but we are concerned about the entire county. People should not be terrorized by marauding dogs in their own neighborhoods.
