Byline: RICK ANSORGE Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph
Colorado Springs, Colo. Six allegedly vicious dogs pace back and forth at the shelter operated by the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region.
Among them are a pit bull, a German shepherd mix and a wolf-hybrid named Shy.
Shy appears as submissive as his name. With his wide face, bulbous nose and pancake-size paws, he looks like an overgrown teddy bear.
On Jan. 6, Shy attacked 10-year-old Tony Valenti of Colorado Springs after the youngster unhooked his chain. Without warning, Shy leaped on Tony's back and started biting his head.
If Tony's father, Sean Valenti, hadn't kicked Shy in the ribs, the boy could have died. As it was, he suffered two head gashes that took 28 staples to close and 30 puncture wounds on his right arm.
A large dog can bite with a force of more than 450 pounds per square inch, enough to puncture sheet metal.
Coming less than a month after two Colorado wolf-hybrids killed Debbie Edmonds, a 39-year-old mother of two, the second attack made front-page news.
The incidents focused attention on a possibility many people would rather ignore: their four-legged companions can turn into biting machines and killers.
``It goes unrecognized as a public-health problem,'' says Suzanne Hetts, a certified animal behaviorist based in Littleton, Colo.
Although the spotlight lately has been on wolf-hybrids, which some experts say are too dangerous to keep as pets, they're hardly the sole source of the problem. More than 1,000 dog bites are reported each year to the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region. Dogs impounded as dangerous animals at the society's shelter have ranged from wolf-hybrids and Rottweilers to schnauzers and Chihuahuas.
Nationwide, up to 3 million dog bites are reported each year. Most victims are children.
``Children are at the dog's eye level,'' Hetts says. ``They make more accessible targets than adults.''
Thousands of years of domestication have not eradicated the canine instincts to hunt and kill prey. When dogs attack children, they typically attack the most vulnerable areas -- the head and neck.
Some attacks occur when a child innocently tries to hug a dog, unaware that dogs interpret this as threatening behavior. But many attacks appear senseless.
In 1993, Brianna Staat, then 7, attempted to pet a 40-pound pit-bull/Australian-blue-heeler mix in Woodland Park, Colo. She'd even asked permission from the owner standing nearby.
With not so much as a growl, the dog went straight for Brianna's face, ripping it open and shredding the muscles around her left eye. It took 90 minutes of plastic surgery and 150 stitches to put her face back together.
While a disproportionate share of serious attacks involve the usual suspects -- wolf hybrids, pit bulls, Rottweilers, Dobermans, German shepherds, chows, Akitas, malamutes and Siberian huskies -- most experts agree it's a combination of nature and nurture that makes a dog vicious.
If a puppy isn't properly socialized during its first few months of life -- that is, gently exposed to different people, places and situations -- it can end up with such a low tolerance for novelty that it lunges at everyone.
Everyone, that is, except its owners.
``While some animals are just nasty and ill-tempered and shouldn't be in the community, most animal problems are people problems,'' says John Pape, an epidemiologist for the Colorado Department of Health and Environment. About 6,000 dog bites are reported each year to the Colorado state health department. ``That's way under the number that actually occur,'' Pape says. ``I don't think it's a decreasing problem.''
Some serious bites go unreported because the owner -- often the victim's parent -- wants to protect the dog.
In Colorado Springs, Humane Society officials shake their heads over a dog owner whose son was attacked four times. The first three times, the owner argued the dog was not to blame because his son had teased it.
The fourth time, the dog ripped open the boy's torso. Doctors were required by law to report the serious dog bites, as they would be a suspected case of child abuse.
Only after the Department of Social Services got involved was the Humane Society able to prove viciousness and obtain a court order to have the dog destroyed.
While most owners of such dogs opt for euthanasia, cases in which owners pull out all the stops to save their dogs are not uncommon, says Allison Wroe, the Humane Society's director of community resources.
``People are fighting for their rights. If they want to own a big, aggressive dog, they feel they should have the right to do so, regardless of how it might impose fear and stress.'' For the most part, the law is on their side.
Some loopholes are big enough to drive a team of sled dogs through.
In 1996, a Denver woman was found not guilty of owning a dangerous dog, a German shepherd that nearly tore a man's ear off at the annual Springspree celebration in Colorado Springs. The reason? Someone else was in control of the dog when it attacked.
In another incident, a Colorado Springs Girl Scout was selling cookies in a residential neighborhood when a dog leapt through a front door and mauled her. The owner was not charged with harboring a dangerous animal because the attack occurred on private property.
In yet another incident, two Akitas couldn't be declared dangerous even though they jumped through a neighbor's window, nearly killed a pet and left the house smeared with blood and feces. The applicable law only recognized dogs that threaten or attack humans.
To close some loopholes, the Colorado Springs City Council adopted a revamped animal-control ordinance in July.
``The new ordinance has made it easier to get convictions,'' says city prosecutor Melissa Riddle.
But the new ordinance doesn't address cases in which children are attacked while attempting to retrieve a ball from a neighbor's back yard or sticking their hands through a fence.
Technically, such a child is guilty of trespassing, and the revised law still protects owners whose dogs attack someone who's committing a crime.
Nor does the new ordinance address cases in which owners move dangerous dogs from one jurisdiction to another to avoid prosecution.
The home-invading Akitas represent a typical example. After they got involved in another scrape, they were sent to live in another area.
But not for long.
``They're back in Colorado Springs with another owner,'' says Donna Straub, the Humane Society's director of field services. ``It's a pass-the-buck situation.''
A century ago, people wouldn't tolerate vicious dogs. Here's a typical news item from an 1890s Gazette: ``A vicious dog attacked a young daughter of Mr. A.E. Hicks and bit her quite seriously about the head. The dog was immediately killed.''
CAPTION(S):
Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph / CAROL LAWRENCE UP TO 3 MILLION dog bites are reported each year. Most of the victims are children. Vicious dog attacks have led many to ask whether animal control laws are adequately protecting the public.
