Posted on September 6, 2012 by Colleen Lynn

2012 Dog Bite Fatality: Trotwood Senior Citizen Killed by Own Dogs

Son Speaks Out
UPDATE 09/05/12: In a new troubling update, the victim's son, Joe Jurgens, said he does not believe the coroner who determined the cause of death was multiple puncture wounds to the head and neck due to dog bites. "I don't believe that's what happened," Jurgens said. "I don't know what happened ... I'd feel a little better if I really knew, but I do not believe those dogs attacked her out of aggression ... I can't imagine, even fathom, that [these dogs] would attack and kill her."

According to the coroner, the cause of death was multiple puncture wounds to the head and neck due to dog bites.

"I don't believe that's what happened," said Jurgens. "I don't know what happened, I wish I did. I'd feel a little better if I really knew, but I do not believe those dogs attacked her out of aggression."

The family says Dawn raised the animals since they were puppies, and had a special bond.

"They used to walk through the woods with her - they protected her," Jurgens said. "I can't imagine, even fathom, that they would attack and kill her." - Fox 45, September 5, 2012

09/05/12: Victim "Lived" for the Dogs
In a troubling update, it is learned that the elderly Trotwood couple began raising the pair of cane corsos from puppies two-and-a-half years ago. The victim's husband, Carl Jurgens, said his wife lived for those dogs, "from the day they were born until Saturday." Dawn Jurgens, 76, suffered major injuries to her face and scalp as well as bite wounds to her arm, according to police. It was Carl who discovered her body. At the request of the family, both dogs were put down.

09/05/12: Woman Killed by Own Dogs
Trotwood, OH - In a developing story, Trotwood police say that 75-year old Dawn Juergens was attacked and killed Saturday by her own dogs at her Union Road home. Officers described the dogs, presumably two canines, as cane corsos -- a Molosser type dog, often infected with fighting bloodlines. Her husband discovered her in the yard after he returned home. According to police, no one witnessed the attack. More information is expected in the coroner's report.

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Colleen Lynn

Fourth Death by County Pit Bull in One Year

Offending pit bull picked up a week earlier in Balboa Park in San Diego.1

U.S. Pit Bull Kills
Tijuana - Last Thursday, a 4-year old Tijuana girl was mauled to death by her grandfather's new pit bull. Godofredo Cruz Martinez, 55-years old, said he found the dog in Balboa Park in San Diego a week earlier. He brought the dog home because it seemed "very playful." The pit bull was tied up in the family's yard when it attacked and killed América Viridiana. At the time of the attack, the little girl's mother was not home; she was under the care of her mother's two sisters.

In the wake of her death, the Director of Investigations of the Deputy Justice in Tijuana, Sergio Lagunas Molina, urged those with "pit bull" dogs to take special care with them to avoid causing injury to a person. "They are aggressive by nature," Molina said. Police arrested both sisters, Carla Francisca Cruz Bustamante, 28, and Cristina García, 26. The child's grandfather may also be subject to criminal penalties. A Criminal Judge will make this determination.2

San Diego County Pit Bulls

América's death marks the fourth fatal attack inflicted by a San Diego County pit bull in one year. Last Christmas Eve, 76-year old Emako Mendoza succumbed to the catastrophic injuries inflicted by her neighbor's pit bulls in June of 2011. In March, letter carrier Diane Jansen died due to a hemorrhagic stroke with dog bites as a contributing factor after being attacked by a pit bull on her route. In June, an 8-month old boy was killed by a pet pit bull living in his home.

Despite the trail of bloody deaths left by San Diego County pit bulls in the U.S. and abroad in a single year, as well as dog bite statistics showing that pit bulls are out biting the top most popular dog breed, Labs, by a 2 to 1 ratio, we believe that Dan DeSousa,3 a public information officer for the county Department of Animal Services, will continue being a "mouthpiece" for pit bull owners and breeders and refuse any discussion of a mandatory pit bull sterilization law.

"We are of the opinion that it's not the breed (to blame for an attack), it's the owner of that particular dog," Dan DeSousa, 10News.com, 06/14/12

To better show the contrast of "mouthpiece" Dan DeSousa, who apparently speaks on behalf of the County of San Diego Department of Animal Services, we look to the language of San Bernardino County. In 2010, the county enacted a mandatory pit bull sterilization law after the breed inflicted four deaths in five years. San Bernardino County Animal Care and Control helped craft the law to increase public safety and lower the annual euthanizations of pit bulls.

"This ordinance has the objectives of reducing the clear overpopulation of pit bulls in our County, encouraging responsible pet ownership and, most important, reducing the number of vicious attacks on people," said First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, who worked with the County’s Animal Care & Control Division to create the ordinance. "In the past five years, four people in San Bernardino County have been killed by this breed, and just this year there have been seven attacks by pit bulls. No other breed has viciously attacked or killed anyone in that time."

Which county would you rather live in?

1Ironically, San Diego pit bull advocates held Pit Bull Awareness Day in Balboa Park last year.
2DogsBite.org thanks a reader for helping to translate the Spanish articles. Please report errors in comments.
3In the State of California it is legal to regulate dog breeds via spay/neuter laws. Municipalities are prohibited from declaring a particular breed "vicious" or "dangerous." See: San Bernardino County's pit bull brochure.

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Colleen Lynn

Communities Are Safer; Euthanasia of Pit Bulls Drops

Dominic Solesky meets his heroes 5-months after surviving a near fatal pit bull attack.

Whidbey Island, WA - Last week, DogsBite.org received another potent response from Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People. If readers recall, last July Clifton responded in detail to fact cooker Mark Robison of the Reno Gazette-Journal after Robison criticized the breed-specific dog attack log complied by Clifton since 1982. Clifton's most recent response is part of a correspondence
with Meagan Dziura, a second year student at George Mason University School of Law.

I am researching and writing a journal article for one of our law journals (the Journal of Law, Economics, and Policy) and am focusing on the rise in Breed Specific Laws and their negative effect on the community. - Meagan Dziura

Merritt Clifton - August 16, 2012 (Links added by DogsBite.org)

Meagan Dziura,

ANIMAL PEOPLE very strongly favors breed-specific legislation following the San Francisco model, which requires that all pit bulls be sterilized.

I'm a step beyond the ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial board position. I very strongly favor the Ontario model, which grandfathered pit bulls in the province at the time their breed-specific law was passed, but does not allow the breeding or import of pit bulls, including their lookalike mixes and close relatives.

My major disagreement with the Ontario model is that it does not cover Rottweilers, who are also about 11 times more likely to kill or disfigure humans & other animals as the average dog, but are much less over-represented in animal shelter intakes and killing.

I don't see any negative effects on communities from breed-specific legislation.

What I see are much safer, healthier communities, where people can jog,
bicycle, play in front yards, and walk their dogs without fear of a pit bull leaping over a fence or out a window or through a screen door or popping up at large out of nowhere, killing or maiming their victims without, in most cases, any previous bite history and any prior warning.

What I see are communities where dogs are again welcome everywhere, as they were during my childhood and youth, before the proliferation of dangerous dogs led to bans on all dogs in many public places, even though more than 80% of the incidents resulting in the prohibitions resulted from the behavior of just one breed type, the large molossers (including pit bulls, Rottweilers, and mastiffs.)

What I see are communities where drug dealers & other criminal elements either prefer not to live, since they cannot keep dangerous dogs to guard their wares, or at least are much less dangerous to their neighbors and law enforcement.

What I see are communities where firefighters -- and I am a former firefighter -- can enter a burning building safely to do a room-to-room search, without risk of opening a door to release a dog who may be more dangerous than the fire itself.

What I see are emergency room physicians who no longer have nightmares about the degloving injuries, especially to the heads of small children, that are typical of pit bull, Rottweiler, and mastiff attacks.

What I see are lawyers screaming their heads off because they are no longer making huge sums representing the owners of dangerous dogs on the one hand and the victims of dog attacks on the other.

And of course I see animal rights activists screaming, without noticing that communities with breed-specific legislation are killing not only a fraction as many pit bulls as those without, but a fraction as many dogs. I don't see any rational reason why anyone who loves dogs would oppose legislation which, if in effect nationally, would prevent the births and premature deaths of more than 900,000 pit bulls per year.

Reality is that opposition to breed-specific legislation favors just three interest groups: dogfighters, people who want to keep dogs as weapons, and breeders of pit bulls, Rottweilers, and other large molosser dogs.

Contrary to common claim, there is no verifiable history of pit bulls in particular having ever been "nanny dogs" or popular household pets. There is, however, quite a long history of pit bull advocates lying quite demonstrably about the realities of pit bulls, dog attacks, and the pit bull record over the past couple of centuries.

And there is also quite a long history of well-meaning young people being taken in by the big lies amplified by the fronts for the pro-pit bull interest groups.

See next several e-mails & the attachment for documentation.

Merritt Clifton
Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

Readers may have favorite parts of Clifton's response, but his response could not be more concise in nailing not only the primary public health and safety concerns these types of dogs pose, but also the enormous shelter killing rate of pit bulls and their mixes. Despite immense efforts
undertaken by humane groups to "adopt their way out" of the unwanted population of pit bulls clogging open admission shelters, pit bull euthanizations still hover above 930,000 annually.1

Bottom-line: 1.) Opposition to breed-specific legislation favors just three interest groups: dogfighters, people who want to keep dogs as weapons, and breeders of pit bulls, rottweilers, and other large molosser dogs, 2.) There is quite a long history of pit bull advocates lying quite demonstrably about the realities of pit bulls, 3.) There is quite a long history of well-meaning young people being taken in by the big lies amplified by the fronts for the pro-pit bull interest groups.

Some of these young people pay with their lives.

12011 U.S. Shelter Data Update, Animal People, July/August 2011, Pg.14

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Colleen Lynn

Maryland Court of Appeals Narrows Decision to Pit Bulls; Removes Cross-Bred Pit Bulls

On April 8, 2014 the governor signed a bill abrogating this Court of Appeals decision.

Motion for Reconsideration
Annapolis, MD - In a rare decision by the high court to grant a motion for reconsideration, the Maryland Court of Appeals narrowed its April, 26 2012 ruling in Tracey v. Solesky by limiting its ruling only to pit bulls and removing the terms: cross-breds, pit bull mix, or cross-bred pit bull mix. The Court narrowed its original Opinion because the case before them, Tracey v. Solesky, had no references to cross-bred pit bulls. The dog in question in Tracey was a "pit bull terrier."

The Court's holding that "pit bulls are inherently dangerous" still stands, as does strict liability for their owners and landlords when a tenant's pit bull attacks.

The Court wrote (highlight by DogsBite.org):

On May 25, 2012, the petitioner, Dorothy Tracey filed a motion for reconsideration, complaining that the imposition of a “new duty” on landlords was fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional as applied to her. An answer to the motion was filed by the respondents. As to the Court’s holding with respect to pit bulls, I would deny the motion.
For the reasons stated in Judge Cathell’s Opinion, I do not believe that a "new duty" was created or that there is anything unconstitutional or unfair about holding Ms. Tracey liable for the gruesome damage done to Dominic Solesky by a pit bull that she knowingly, and with obvious reservations, allowed her tenant to keep on her property.
The Opinion is not as dramatic and pervasive as the motion claims. It does not prohibit the ownership or breeding of pit bulls; it does not require that persons who own such dogs get rid of them. By imposing long-standing principles of common law strict liability for what is now clearly foreseeable damage done by those dogs, it simply requires that those who possess them or permit them to be on their property take reasonable steps to assure that they do not run loose or otherwise are in a position to injure other people.
That said, having re-read the briefs, relevant portions of the record extract, and the dissent, I am now convinced that, on the record before us, the application of the Court’s holding of strict liability to cross-bred pit bulls was both gratuitous and erroneous. I would grant the motion for reconsideration, in part, to delete any reference to cross-bred pit bulls (i.e., part pit bull and part some other breed of domestic dog), so that the Court’s holding would apply only to pit bulls that are not cross-breds. There are two reasons for my change in position. First, there was never any assertion, suggestion, or finding in this case that the dog was a cross-bred -- was anything other than a pit bull. Second, it is not at all clear what "cross-bred" really means -- whether it is limited to the offspring of two pure-bred dogs of different breed, so that the offspring is, in effect, half of one and half of the other, or includes succeeding generations bred from cross-bred parents. The complaint filed in the Circuit Court alleged that the dog that mauled young Dominic was a "pit bull terrier."

Furthermore, the cases cited in the April ruling also involved "pit bulls." The Court wrote: "There is no suggestion in any of them (except a brief reference in Wade v. Hartley) that the dog in question was or might have been a crossbred." Because the cross-bred issue was not raised in Tracey v. Solesky, there was no discussion about what the term embodied. Thus, the extension of strict liability to cross-bred pit bulls, "should await a case in which that issue is fairly raised."

The Court's Opinion was written by Judge Alan Wilner. Joining in the majority Opinion were Judges Harrell, Greene, Adkins and Barbera -- though Judges Harrell, Green and Barbera maintain their dissent to the extension of strict liability to the owners of pit bulls and to the owners of property who permit tenants to keep pit bulls on their property. Chief Judge Bell and Judge Cathell (who wrote the original Opinion) both would have denied the motion to reconsider.

Discussion

More discussion about the Opinion is forthcoming, particularly concerning the Court's sharp language of the landlord. The Court found nothing unconstitutional or unfair about, "holding Ms. Tracey liable for the gruesome damage done to Dominic Solesky by a pit bull that she knowingly, and with obvious reservations, allowed her tenant to keep on her property" and footnote 2, which relates to wolf-hybrids and Maryland Code, § 10-621(b) of the Criminal Law Article.

DogsBite blog ::

2012 Dog Bite Fatality: Trotwood Senior Citizen Killed by Own Dogs

San Diego County Pit Bull Responsible for Death of 4-Year Old Tijuana Girl

Fourth Death by County Pit Bull in One Year

Animal People Editor Summarizes Need for Breed-Specific Legislation in 600 Words

Communities Are Safer; Euthanasia of Pit Bulls Drops

Maryland Court of Appeals Narrows Decision to Pit Bulls; Removes Cross-Bred Pit Bulls