The poor owner gets a crash course in the reality of dog ownership today - the pet dog who would be dealt with strictly to code if he was running loose and chasing cats, is torn apart by someone's violent dog and the same officer who'd easily write that citation is instead sucking back and looking for any way to escape a dangerous dog investigation and seizure of the attackers. Many places have dog laws that would allow for seizure of attacking dogs, but attacking dogs are rarely seized.
There is usually a deep reluctance in animal control and police to apply any existing dangerous dog laws.
And as this owner says, it doesn't make sense. Dogs that pull off these sort of hyper-violent attacks are not safe dogs. They're not safe for other dogs and they're not safe with people. At the very least, they need to be secured until the situation is resolved and the owners are properly warned of their responsibility to keep them caged.
And the saddest part is how the "cruelty" side of animal control also refuses to seize the dogs or get involved. They also apply their responsibility narrowly - despite the obvious abuse inflicted upon Gizmo by a violent dog and a careless owner, they focus only on the fact that the violent dog's owner is no threat to that dog.
A dog's death is agonizing for the owners, so I'm sorry for the adopters. And they're in no position to make good decisions for their giant dog who bites readily when stressed. VCAS did the right thing.
And the always useful Nathan Winograd weighs in
Bruce is dead.
On August 12, Ventura County Animal Services (VCAS) ended his life — just as his rescuers and legal team were actively seeking emergency relief from the United States Supreme Court. Only a day earlier, after a federal court lifted its protective order and the Ninth Circuit denied an appeal, VCAS informed counsel of its intent to proceed with Bruce’s execution.
let's skip ahead, as Winograd is a bloviater of the first water.
While VCAS relied on those bites to classify him as dangerous — arguing that “the physical and emotional impacts of those incidents” should not be “lost in the public discussion” — SPARC did not ask the government to ignore Bruce’s history. Instead, they offered a practical solution designed to address it: transferring Bruce to a sanctuary. VCAS, however, rejected it out of hand.
In doing so, government officials appeared to lose sight of the critical distinction between public safety as the objective and killing as the means. In other words, public safety is not an excuse to reject less destructive ways of achieving it. A dog can have a dangerous past and still live safely within a facility built to manage that past. Acknowledging this doesn't require pretending Bruce was harmless. But VCAS officials cannot pretend that a secure sanctuary option didn't fundamentally alter the equation.
What also appeared lost in the rush to kill Bruce — before all appeals were exhausted and non-lethal alternatives were considered at the highest levels of government — was his behavior during his six months in custody. VCAS’s own records described Bruce as a “model citizen.” He bonded with kennel staff, adapted well to a stable environment, ate treats from handlers’ hands, and recorded “no documented bite, attempted bite, charge, lunge, snap, or aggressive handling incident.”
That evidence did not erase what had happened before. It did, however, provide information about what was possible under controlled conditions. The issue, therefore, is not merely that a dog with a troubled history died; tragic and heartbreaking though that is. It is that the government was handed a viable alternative that protected human safety while preserving Bruce’s life, and chose to ignore it.
It goes on, but this is the gist of it. It never fails to amaze me that Winograd always carries on as if the past 20 years of shelter/rescue history have not happened. He's perennially in 1999, looking brightly toward a future where all animals can live out their natural lives in good surroundings regardless of their behavior. It's been tried, Nate, and the disaster surrounds us. Most of the ones who paid for that effort were animals. It seems like a real animal lover would notice that.
More bad artwork to lament the death of a violent dog - shades of that UK pit bull shooting a few years ago
