Tuesday, Aug, 1, 2006 • Board takes a tougher stance on loose dogs

Publisher’s note: These stories originally appeared in the Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2006, edition of the Lassen County Times.

Lassen County residents will see a much tougher attitude toward loose dogs if the Board of Supervisors follows through with what its members said last week.

Last week Supervisor Jim Chapman called the animal control situation in the county grossly unacceptable at the board’s Tuesday, July 25 meeting.

Supervisor Lloyd Keefer said one animal control officer for the county is not enough. Supervisor Jack Hanson said he is aware of the issue. Supervisor Brian Dahle said the county needs to do something the first time a dog bites a person and Chairman Bob Pyle ordered county staff to bring back a report at the board’s next meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 8 as to what animal control does when a dog bites.

Their comments were, at least in part, a response to Westwood resident Judy Robinson’s story of the trauma her family suffered, while living in the Bay Area, when her daughter was scarred for life by a vicious dog attack.

“Thirty one years ago my small daughter was viciously attacked by a German shepherd that was trained in Germany; he only knew German commands,” Robinson said. “He ripped the back of her skull. Her head was literally flayed open.”

Robinson’s daughter suffered numerous fang puncture wounds on the top of her head and scratches down her neck and back from the dog’s claws. The only police response was to put the dog under house quarantine for three weeks.

“Big whoop,” Robinson said.

Her daughter received more than 25 stitches “to close the back of her 5-year-old little head.”

“I tell you this because I never want to experience this again. I never want a parent to see their child with blood pouring out of their head. I did not know if my child was going to be alive by the time we got to the hospital; she had lost that much blood,” Robinson said.

To this day, she and her daughter both fear dogs horribly, Robinson said.

“The dog problem is beyond belief in our county. There must be a resolution to this and it must come now,” she said.

Robinson told the board people should pay a hefty fine for their loose dogs. She said people think a dog license gives them a license to let their dog run free.

Robinson asked the board to assess heavy fines against owners of dogs at large before they get their dogs back.

“If the fine is under $100, they should be doubled for the first offense, tripled for the second and if the third time arises, they should lose the right to have the dog,” Robinson said.

Those who lose their dog through the process should have to file with the county animal control officer before they get another dog, she said. If there’s a problem with the new dog, the owners should go to jail or have to do a year of community service at the animal shelter. Robinson added all neighbors should be notified when the owner gets a new dog.

“This way they can call animal control when the owner becomes negligent,” she said, adding negligent owners who have to pay a huge fine or lose their dogs may become responsible pet owners. “Our dog problem has been an ongoing problem in every district in Lassen County and all of you know that.”

Robinson said she complained about a female dog in Westwood who came after her. She must now use pepper spray to keep two of that dog’s puppies from harassing her on the way to her mailbox.

County policy
Dahle and Pyle asked what laws are on the books for animal control. County Counsel Craig Settlemire said the state Food and Agriculture Code provides a civil court process for residents to have a dog declared vicious or dangerous “and place requirements on the owners to control those dogs and if they fail to do so, well then, the animals can be destroyed.”

The county code also has procedures for citations, fines and penalties for dogs at large and dogs that bite.

“But are we using them?” Dahle asked. “Apparently not. To redo a motion here that says the same thing that we already have the power to do is ludicrous. We should just say, ‘Go do it.’”

Pyle asked Millar what he and his employees are doing. Millar said about three years ago the county had a hearing officer, Dawson Arnold, who decided complaints about dangerous or vicious dogs. However, Arnold retired and since then public works has taken several cases through the regular court process.

One dog that bit an employee of a nationwide chain store five times in the store parking lot was euthanized through the existing process, Millar said. He added the department has discretion on whether to destroy a dog after the first bite or wait until it bites three times.

Settlemire said he knows the county has taken such cases to court because he’s represented the county on some such cases in court. Settlemire said he’d be happy to work up a report on how recent cases have been handled.

Pyle said the board will discuss adding an additional animal control officer when it considers the 2006/2007 budget next month. Chapman said he would push hard for a major reform in the way the county handles animal control during those budget discussions.

“There are an awful lot of demands on that budget right now,” County Administrative Officer John Ketelsen warned.

Chapman’s story
Chapman said the historic record shows dog problems back to the 1880s. It also shows about every seven years the dog problem becomes a predominate issue. He said the last real big discussion the board had was in 1999.

“It would be really nice to be able to retire from this board at some point in time and say that we’ve done something that nobody else has done over the last 125 years in this community and we’ve dealt with the animal control issue in a way that people would respect,” he said.

He said a report of one dog biting five times or a resident having to defend herself against a neighbor’s puppies is grossly unacceptable. Chapman said he was bitten by a dog as a child and had to fend off dogs as he delivered newspapers in Uptown Susanville in the 1960s.

“We used to carry this oak cane with us,” he said. “Because every so often, at least once a month, sometimes more often, we had to deploy that cane. And I’ve busted more dogs across the chops with that cane to protect myself.”

Thirty years ago, Chapman said he was a member of the Susanville City Council and was walking out his parents’ front door, but couldn’t get off the front porch because dogs were in the neighbor’s trash. He went back into the house and found the cane he used as a paperboy.

“I got half way off the porch when I realized, ‘Why am I using a cane to defend myself against the dogs in the neighbor’s trash? I’m the mayor of this city!’ So I marched back into the house and I called the police chief and within 30 seconds every cop car in town was there at the corner of Maple and North dealing with these dogs in the trash.”

As a cyclist, Chapman said he calls animal control regularly about dogs not under the control of their owners. He also carries a can of pepper spray on his handlebars to deal with aggressive dogs. He said anybody who has run for public office has been bit at least once while out campaigning door-to-door.

“Several times,” Dahle said.

Chapman said he wants to see the laws enforced. He said the board must give direction to county staff on how to handle dog problems.

Pyle ordered Millar and Ketelsen to report on how the county handles dog bites, how it enforces the law, how many times a dog may bite before it’s destroyed, is animal control returning biting dogs to their owners and what policies the county needs to put in place. Ketelsen promised to bring that report to the board’s Tuesday, Aug. 8 meeting.

Human safety is animal control’s top priority
Lassen County Animal Control officials try to make regular rounds of the county, according to Public Works Director Larry Millar, who is responsible for the county program.

“Westwood, as everybody knows, is one of our kind of problem areas,” Millar said at the Tuesday, July 25 Board of Supervisors meeting. “We try to get over there more often.”

Since human safety issues take priority, Millar said the department rarely meets its goal of patrolling Westwood for animal control every week.

“We’re probably there once every two weeks,” he said. “But when complaints come in we do try to get over there that day or the next day if possible. There again the human safety ones are the calls we have to respond to first. If it’s just a dog at large we will respond. Sometimes it’s maybe a day later.”

Millar said then someone from the department will meet with the person making the complaint and will go to the dog owner and write a citation if department personnel actually see the dog at large.

“If we don’t see the dog at large but the complaintant wishes to write a statement and is willing to testify in court, we will go ahead and issue a citation on that account, also. It kind of depends on what the complaint is,” he said.

If the department gets three letters of complaint from the surrounding area, it can also cite an owner for a barking dog.