San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Handling the most vicious of dogs
ACS pair tackles problem
Animal Care Services officers Jennifer Fried and Justine Sanchez were cautious as they approached a North Side residence, looking for a black-and-white dog that a man reported had bitten him as he jogged along the street.
At the home, they discovered the owner had three pit bulls. The officers explained they would have to quarantine the stocky dog accused of breaking out of the backyard and attacking the jogger.
The owner was cooperative, putting a leash on the dog’s collar and leading him over to the ACS truck.
Suddenly, the leash broke and the dog ran toward the strangers. Within seconds, Sanchez had secured the dog with a catch pole and the owner’s help.
The situation ended safely, but it showcases how risky the officers’ work can be. The two investigators who handle all the city’s dangerous dog cases never know whether the animal — or the owner — might attack.
Since October, Animal Care Services has gone to court with 37 dangerous
dog cases and nine cases of serious bodily injury involving people who were hospitalized after they were attacked by a dog.
Overall, there have been
2,335 reports of animal bites and scratches that break the skin. ACS has 40 officers who investigate those reports, but the two dangerous dog investigators are tasked with the most serious cases. It’s called one of the toughest, most mentally and emotionally exhausting jobs at ACS.
One woman who reported a dangerous dog in a NorthCentral subdivision said a neighbor’s Staffordshire terrier repeatedly chewed through her backyard wooden fence for a year and made her feel like a hostage in her own home. She often was confronted by the dog in her yard.
She said she called her councilman and reported the incidents to ACS, along with videos of the canine in her yard. The agency deemed the dog dangerous and made the owners comply with new rules to protect the public.
“I feared it was going to eventually attack me,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from her neighbor. “Animal Care Services only comes once a year and can only do so much. There’s no criminal laws, they issue a fine or citations and that’s it. The law is what needs to change so there will be a stop to it.”
ACS spokeswoman Lisa Norwood said the agency has tried to strengthen laws to protect the public from such vicious dogs.
“One of the biggest problems was owners of dogs were acting aggressively and weren’t held responsible for their animals,” she said. “The law was not allowing us to address the symptoms of what had become a disease in our community.”
Now, a dog can be deemed dangerous if it causes bodily injury in an unprovoked attack outside its enclosure.
Owners of a dog deemed dangerous must meet 10 requirements if they want to keep the animal, including posting signs, paying $100 every year for a dangerous dog permit and obtaining a
$100,000 liability insurance policy.
In January, Alphonso McCloud, 29, was sentenced to four years in prison after a jury found him guilty of serious bodily injury for his dog’s attack on neighbor Doris Mixon Smith in 2017.
McCloud’s dog, Bully, charged and mauled Smith in her own yard, severing her arm below the elbow and scarring her face from chin to eyebrow. His wife, Stanyelle MilesMcCloud, 31, was sentenced to 10 years probation and told she never could own a dog again.
After the initial attack, Fried went to the McCloud home when it was reported they had another dog. There actually were two dogs, a pitbull and a Rhodesian ridgeback in the McClouds’ backyard. The ridgeback was deemed dangerous and later was euthanized.
Norwood said the common denominator in dog attack cases is a lack of responsibility on a dog owner’s part and a lack of education about the need to report incidents to
ACS.
“There’s real value in having knowledge of an animal’s bite history,” she said. “But what if it’s the first bite? That’s why it’s so important for our community, pet owners and nonpet owners to learn the basics of dog behavior. Because even the sweetest dog in the world can and will bite given the right circumstances.”
Neither Fried nor Sanchez have been bitten but they have been charged countless times. They frequently hear the animal they’re investigating before they actually see it.
At a recent stop, when Fried knocked on the door, a dog inside the house barked wildly as it threw itself against a front window over and over again, threatening to break it. The owner wasn’t home and the investigators left. They would return another day.
Fried and Sanchez said they have had to develop a thick skin. Some dog owners are combative and even abusive when confronted with allegations. At barely 5 feet tall, Sanchez said she quickly learned to stand her ground.
During her one year as an investigator, she’s been berated by angry residents whose dogs have threatened neighbors and the surrounding community.
“I had to toughen myself up to talk to different kinds of people,” Sanchez said.
As for the emotional part, Sanchez said at first she felt guilty at not being able to give a dog back to an owner or having to walk a dog to be euthanized because of a court ruling.
“But I had to really change the way that I thought,” she said, “and let myself know it’s not my fault, but the fact that that an owner could not be responsible and give a dog what it deserved.”
Fried said it’s hard when there’s a case where an animal or person is maimed or killed because a dog wasn’t properly trained or secured.
“If this dog wasn’t owned by this person, it probably would have turned out to be a good dog,” said Fried, who has been working with dangerous dog cases for 3 1⁄ years.
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Responsibility extends to the community as well as to dog owners, officials said.
Manuel Flores, an ACS field supervisor, said that first-hand knowledge and details from neighbors help ACS investigators determine if they’re dealing with an aggressive or dangerous animal.
“We can understand the fear from the citizen,” Flores said, “which sparks the investigation from our dangerous dog investigators to proceed further. If there are violations by the owner and it (meets) the definition of a dangerous dog, then they can place those restrictions on the animals so that the citizen can be at peace.”
Flores said residents have to be willing to testify if needed, but he understands there often is a concern about possible retaliation. Still, that help is needed to help make the community safer for everyone.
“ACS’ mission is to protect public safety,” Norwood said, “and not just because that is the law in San Antonio, it’s because San Antonio demands it. Our citizens deserve to be protected from dangerous dogs.”
ACS Advisory Board President Rita Braeutigam said the issue calls for a proactive approach of enforcement and education.
“It is unrealistic to believe that we can prevent every dog bite before it occurs,” Braeutigam said, “but San Antonio can address a huge number of them starting right now. If you are aware of a vicious dog living in your neighborhood, work with Animal Care Servic- es and the legal process to hold the owner accountable.”
Fried thinks there’s room for improvement in the existing ordinance.
“It would be nice if the law would be ramped up for repeat offenders,” she said.
Back on the North Side, Fried and Sanchez stopped for an annual inspection at the home of Natalie McCallum, owner of a mastiff-boxer mix named Mugs, short for Mug Ruith, a powerful druid of
Irish mythology.
On McCallum’s front yard fence hangs a cautionary sign that bears an image of a dog with wide-opened jaws that reads, “Warning: Dangerous Dog.” It’s one of two required signs; the second hangs on a kennel made of chain-link fencing anchored in sand in the back yard.
McCallum, 50, said it just was bad circumstances that led to Mugs being declared a dangerous dog. According to an affidavit, a child from McCallum’s family was walking the 4-year-old mastiff on a leash, when he broke away and bit an 11-year-old boy on his right calf and backside.
If the family hadn’t agreed to the required safety measures, Mugs would have been put down.
“I didn’t want to lose my dog,” McCallum said. “We learned a valuable and expensive lesson.”
Fried and Sanchez found McCallum had met most of the requirements, but she was cited for not fixing a crooked kennel gate and not having a copy of the required liability insurance policy.
“We’ll give you a time limit to get the fence fixed,” Fried told McCallum. “You need to call the insurance company and get a declaration page.”
The officers made plans to be back within a month to see if McCallum had complied.
Afterward, the dangerous dog investigators returned to the office for the last appointment of their day, with a pet owner who wanted to retrieve his two dogs. They had been quarantined after they were found roaming loose, scaring neighbors.
Sanchez pushed her sunglasses back on her head and looked up at Paul Lerma as she explained the terms for getting his dogs back. He agreed, then paid a $900 fee and was escorted to the quarantine kennels, where the dogs jumped excitedly when they saw him. As required, he latched a muzzle over each dog’s snout and led them one at a time to his vehicle.
erma said that usually, a neighbor would call him if his dogs got loose. The whole scene was a misunderstanding, he said, and he’s not sure if he supports the city ordinance.
“It’s fair up to a point,” said Lerma, 47. “I’m not sure if it’s fair with all that is involved.”
Once Lerma was gone, the two officers wrapped up their paperwork and took stock of the long day. Both said they feel a sense of satisfaction about their work overall.
“It’s gratifying,” Fried said. “We’re able to get some justice for victims.”