Pit bull fight: Bill would target dangerous dogs

By Sue Vorenberg
Tribune Reporter

The battle of the pit bull is about to begin.

Legislators and dog advocates are taking sides and discussing new dangerous-dog laws after an attack by a pit bull/Shar-Pei mix last month that cost an Albuquerque man his genitals.

State Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, an Albuquerque Republican, was preparing legislation before the attack, but the publicity around the incident brings the issue to the forefront, she said.

"I'm hearing more and more that people are scared to death to take their children to the park because of pit bulls," Wilson Beffort said. "When people say that other dogs bite, certainly a little dog like a Chihuahua can bite, but it's not going to kill you."

Wilson Beffort plans to introduce legislation banning some forms of pit bull breeding in the next legislative session, she said.

Rudolpho Ramirez, 25, was found naked and bleeding Aug. 31 near a West Side school. At last report, he was hospitalized in stable condition. His family requested that the hospital give no further updates on his condition.

Albuquerque police have not filed charges against Ramirez. They think the dog was his but do not think it was abused, Detective Jeff Arbogast, a police spokesman, said Tuesday.

City Animal Services officials think they have captured the dog but haven't decided whether it will be euthanized.

Blaming the much maligned pit bull breed for such an attack - and banning a specific type of animal - is a mistake, said Glen Bui, vice president of the American Canine Foundation.

Any type of dog can be vicious - it all depends on the atmosphere in which the dog is raised, Bui said in a telephone interview from Seattle.

"There's no such thing as a mean gene that makes one breed more dangerous than another," Bui said. "A dog is a dog. In the majority of fatal attacks, it's either an irresponsible parent who leaves their child around a dog or an irresponsible dog owner who mistreats the dog."

About 900 people are bitten by dogs each year in the Albuquerque area, a typical number for an area this size, said Ernest Alexander, assistant manager of Animal Services.

"Bite incidents really depend on the dog," Alexander said. "People get bitten a lot when they're trying to give strays food, because the dog is so hungry it often doesn't know what it's doing."

Some dogs - of all breed types - display aggressive behavior from birth, said Kate Rindy, executive director of the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society.

"Our experience is that some pit bulls seem to be hard-wired for aggression, but that's not true for all pit bulls," Rindy said. "You can actually tell some things about a dog's temperament as early as eight weeks if you know what to look for."

One way to check aggressive tendencies is to pick up your puppy, flip it over and hold it as if it were a baby, Rindy said. Most dogs will let their owners do that, but dogs with aggressive tendencies will not, Rindy said.

"When you see a dog at any time that just at the sight of another person or animal bares its teeth and lunges, that's beyond normal territorial behavior," Alexander said. "That's probably too late to help the dog."

Wilson Beffort says she's concerned the type of dog that allegedly bit Ramirez - a pit bull mix, rather than a pure breed - is generally more aggressive. She thinks pit bulls not bred by licensed breeders should be banned.

In many cases, dogs that bite have been encouraged to be aggressive by their owners, experts agree. But other ways owners treat their dogs can determine behavior, Bui said.

Dogs kept on chains are more likely to attack people than those that roam in a back yard, kennel or house, he said.

"The chain makes them unstable; it causes aggressive behavior from a lack of socialization," Bui said.

Small children also shouldn't be left alone with dogs of any type, Bui said.

"Children love to tease dogs, but that can enhance aggressive behavior," he said.

Another big problem, which causes most of the bites Santa Fe's Rindy has seen, is when owners let their dogs run loose and see bikers or runners as prey, she said.

Spaying and neutering are major assets in keeping dogs from becoming vicious, said Karen Delise, author of "Fatal Dog Attacks: The Stories behind the Statistics." She also is a member of the American Canine Foundation and a veterinary technician for the New York City Sheriff's Office.

"Actually, 95 percent of all fatal dog attacks in the U.S. in the last five years have been caused by dogs that were not neutered," she said.

The dog that attacked Ramirez is an unneutered male, animal control officials said.

Training and socializing a dog is key to fighting aggressive behavior, Rindy said. If a dog owner thinks a pet is becoming aggressive, the best thing to do is seek help, because training sometimes can fix the problems - and save the dog's life, she added.

Delise says attacking the genital area is not uncommon in medium-sized dogs, and it is unlikely the nature of Ramirez's injuries was anything but a coincidence.

"My gut instinct would tell me that area just happened to be at the dog's eye level," Delise said.

Wilson Beffort says she knows another victim of a dog attack in New Mexico with the same injury, although she declined to give the victim's name.

New Mexico has had six fatal attacks in the past 30 years, none involving pit bulls.

"For a state that's had fatal attacks, you guys are lucky," Bui said. "You have the lowest number of fatal attacks of any state."

In Arizona, there have been nine attacks in the past 30 years. In Texas, there have been 29, Bui said.

After the attack on Ramirez, Gov. Bill Richardson announced his interest in legislation for tough penalties against owners of dangerous dogs.

The governor's proposed legislation will not specify a breed and will focus on dog behavior and owner responsibility, Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley said. The governor will review guidelines suggested by several organizations.

The American Canine Foundation suggests dogs be declared dangerous if they cause severe injury, bite a human or domestic animal, or menace a human, Bui said.

After the first offense in which a dog is declared dangerous, owners should be required to keep the dog confined or muzzled and have insurance coverage of $150,000 or more. On a second offense, the dog owner should be charged with a felony, and the dog should be euthanized, Bui said.

Wilson Beffort agrees with the idea of tough penalties against owners of dangerous dogs, although she's not sure of the details yet. She plans to hold a public forum in the next month to take input, she said.

"Part of the legislation will increase the powers of animal control services," Wilson Beffort said. "Right now it's hard to remove a dog unless animal control is there when a problem occurs."

She would add mandatory financial consequences for the owners of dangerous dogs, she said.

"Right now the owner has no obligation to help the victim under current statutes," Wilson Beffort said. "Some victims have to have corrective surgery. I know one that can't work anymore. If you know you own a dog that has been earmarked by experts that has been potentially dangerous, then you have to assume certain liabilities to own that pet."

There have been six fatal dog attacks in New Mexico in the past 30 years, according to a national expert on such attacks. They are:

1983 A stray malamute killed a 3-year-old boy in Santa Fe as he was walking home.

1993 A wolf-hybrid on a chain killed a 12-year-old boy in Eldorado who approached the dog.

1999 A Doberman pinscher on a chain killed a 6-year-old boy in Chaparral who threw a spoonful of sand in the dog's face.

2001 An unidentified breed of dog killed an elderly Bernalillo County woman.

2002 A wolf-hybrid killed a woman in Arroyo Hondo as she tried to break up a dog fight.

2003 A pack of mixed-breed stray dogs killed a drunk woman in her 30s in Chama as she walked home from a bar.

Sources: Karen Delise, author of "Fatal Dog Attacks: The Stories Behind the Statistics" and a veterinary technician for the New York City Sheriff's Office; New Mexico Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics

Dog bites by severity in Albuquerque, 2002 through 2004

Type of injury	2002	2003	2004
No injury	87	46	19
Broken skin	301	417	275
Single laceration	47	37	37
Single puncture	102	118	104
Multiple lacerations	56	46	39
Multiple punctures	299	242	207
Total	892	906	681

Source: Albuquerque Animal Services Division

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