Some dogs bite!

Minneapolis policymakers want more teeth in dog laws

BY DENNIS GEISINGER

The number and severity of recent dog attacks has some policy makers putting more teeth in their laws applying to dangerous pets.

In the Twin Cities, six different cases of dogs attacking people have resulted in serious injury in the past three months.

Most recently, two young girls suffered bites and puncture wounds after being chased by dogs in NE Minneapolis on May 19. Five-year-old Elizabeth Marsolais was treated for 17 bites.

On April 23, 59-year-old Joanne Jungmann of White Bear Lake was hospitalized for bites after she was attacked by two pit bulls.

A 4-year-old girl from Minneapolis needed 13 staples in her head after a neighbor's pit bull attacked her April 20.

On April 14, 8-year-old DeVonta Prince from Minneapolis was hospitalized after an attack by an Akita dog at a school bus stop.

Local media published the grisly details of an attack on a Minneapolis woman last March. Paula Ybarra was listed in critical condition after being bitten by her neighbor's dogs, an American bulldog and pit bull. Her throat and vocal cords were torn and she spent weeks in the hospital.

According to a City of Minneapolis dog bite fact sheet, dog bites have increased 37 percent over the last 10 years, totaling almost 4.5 million bites a year and costing society about a billion dollars annually. Compiled data concludes that boys between the ages of 5 and 9 are most at risk and that dog bites account for more emergency room visits than playground injuries, bike, moped, ATV, inline skating and skateboard injuries combined.

Minneapolis civil codes contain a test for designating a pet as dangerous.The ordinance says that a "dangerous animal" is any animal that, without provocation, inflicts substantial bodily harm on a human being on public or private property; kills another animal while off the owner's property; or has been found to be potentially dangerous … after the owner has [been given] notice. There are fines and punitive licensing fees for those whose dogs have been cited as dangerous.
The city has the right to destroy any dog that "has bitten one or more persons on two or more occasions, or has caused serious bodily injury or disfigurement to any person, or has engaged in an attack on or exhibited unusually aggressive behavior," according to the ordinance.

Minneapolis City Council Member Don Samuels had sought to toughen up the dangerous animal ordinance even before Ybarra's attack. Samuels is chair of the city's Council Committee on Public Safety and Regulatory Services.
But the politics of pet loyalists have softened Samuel's stance on dog euthanasia.

"Even council member Lisa Goodman is a dog owner," said Samuels. He and Goodman have formed a work group to explore over the next few months any changes to be made in how dogs in Minneapolis are controlled.

"We have invited a wide variety of people to give input," said Samuels. "Even dog owners. We don't want to alienate those who are regulated by pet ordinances. We already have a huge population of unlicensed dogs in the city," he said.
Violent attacks on people by pets have been stirring debate since the Diane Whipple case of 2001. In January of that year, two dogs killed Diane Whipple of San Francisco in the hall of her apartment building. Criminal charges ranging all the way to murder were filed against the owners of the dogs and although they were found guilty in March 2002, the appellate phase of the case will test the circumstances under which a dog owner should be found guilty of murder when their dog kills. Appeals could stretch on for years, according to attorneys familiar with the case.

This spring has been a deadly season for dog attacks all across America. During the month of May four people died from dog attacks.

A 90-year-old man in San Antonio was killed by two pit bulls that broke into his home. In Memphis, a 59-year-old man died from complications of injuries from an earlier attack by pit bulls. A Doberman Pinscher and a German Shepherd mauled a 96-year-old woman from El Paso to death as she was feeding them. A 3-year-old boy died on Tuesday after dogs at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia attacked him.

A law sent to the governor of Texas by its state legislature on Tuesday makes dog owners whose pets attack people subject to a third-degree felony with possible prison time of two to 10 years and a possible $10,000 fine. If the victim dies, the charge could become a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Another "dangerous dog" law passed in this year's Tennessee legislature imposes liability on dog owners whose pets cause injury regardless of whether the dog had any past record or whether the owner knew of the dog's viciousness.