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Exiled dogs escape animal control's nets
By Jason Dietrich
A pair of "viscous" dogs banished from the city limits by the Redondo City Council evaded seizure by city animal control officers last week.
Last Tuesday, the Redondo Beach City Council overruled a decision by the city's animal control department, ordering the owners of a pair of rottweilers to find the dogs a new home outside of Redondo Beach. Animal control was ordered to round up the dogs Wednesday morning, but Michael Rotsten, the dog owners' attorney, said the dogs would be gone before then. Rotsten sent the city a fax on Wednesday morning saying the animals had left the city. When animal control officers knocked on the Perry Avenue door of Leon Ureselmann and Suzanne Hochmann, the dog's owners the rottweilers had been removed.
The dogs, "Trigger" and "Sasha," attacked a 73-year-old neighbor March 31 near her Perry Avenue home. Eleanore Lagg suffered a 4-inch gash on her upper arm, a cracked vertebra and other injuries in the attack that left her hospitalized for six days. She still has nightmares about being attacked by dogs and is afraid to leave the house, says her husband Fred Lagg.
"Any time she sees or hears the dogs she gets frightened. She can't garden, go to mass, go out to lunch with her friends. Should she have to give up her life for a pair of guard dogs?" said Lagg, adding that medical bills from the incident have neared $50,000.
Council members voted 4-0 (District 4 Councilman Bob Pinzler was absent) to have the dogs taken into city custody by Wednesday morning and held until the owners found them a home outside city limits. If no home was found after 14 days, the animals were to be destroyed.
Rotsten said the city should not seize a citizen's property without due process.
"There was no record of the initial hearing. No chance to cross-examine. No testimony under oath. The agency has made a ruling. This is a problem that should be resolved in front of a judge," Rotsten said, adding that the Laggs had already filed a personal injury suit against the dog's owners.
District 1 Councilman Gerard Bisignano disagreed, saying that enforcing city ordinances was part of the city council's duty.
This is the first time the council has heard an appeal of the results of a vicious dog hearing. A May 15 hearing with animal control officials determined that the animals could be considered "vicious" under the city's code, but could be kept if they were only allowed outside when leashed and muzzled or muzzled in a sturdier dog run. The dogs were taken into city custody while a new run was built and returned to their owners.
"I was shocked that the dogs were allowed to remain in our neighborhood," said Perry Avenue resident Michael Colbert.
Animal control officers had been watching the house, sometimes under cover, to determine whether owners were complying with the order's conditions. Neighbors said they had seen the dogs running loose on at least one occasion.
Nearly twenty North Redondo residents appeared to protest the animal control official's ruling. Residents said that after the attack, they were afraid to let their children play outside.
"I happen to think it's a very grave safety issue," said District 5 Councilman John Parsons, in whose district the incident occurred.
Lagg's husband said the attack occurred when she noticed that one of their neighbor's three dogs, a brown terrier mix, was running loose in the neighborhood. When she started over to her neighbor's house to ask if they needed help corralling the errant pup, she was charged by the two rottweilers.ER