"We want to make sure we confirm that these are the right dogs," said Animal Control Officer Monique Middleton of the Southwest Communities Animal Shelter in Wildomar. "Once we do that, it will just be a matter of locating the owner."
If the pit bulls in the Wildomar shelter are identified as the ones licensed by Mission Viejo Animal Services, the Orange County agency would have the authority to take jurisdiction over the animals and to press charges against the owners for violating the order, Middleton said.
"These dogs are definitely not going to be returned back to the owner," she said.
Although a dog attack on another dog is not necessarily grounds for declaring the attacker dangerous, the vicious nature of the Lake Elsinore attack indicates the public threat posed by that pair of pit bulls, Middleton said.
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| Scarlett, one of two pit bulls that killed one small dog and attacked two others Monday in Lake Elsinore, has been impounded. |
If the Mission Viejo shelter doesn't act, Middleton said, "We would seek a court order to have the dogs humanely euthanized."
Middleton said animal control officers received a report of the attack at 8:24 a.m. Monday and responded to the scene at Pottery and Lowell streets, a residential area near downtown Lake Elsinore.
There, they learned that the two pit bulls, a male and a female, had attacked and ripped apart a resident's pet Papillon, a small breed sometimes referred to as a Continental toy spaniel.
"A lady was walking her small dog and two pit bulls came out of nowhere and attacked and killed her dog 'Sydney', and she had to watch the whole thing," Middleton said.
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| Anna McDonald, of Lake Elsinore, said her papillon, Sydney, was killed by pit bulls on the loose Monday in Lake Elsinore. |
The attacking dogs then went after two other dogs, one of whom suffered a substantial injury while the other suffered puncture wounds, she said.
The male pit bull involved in the attack was captured. The female managed to escape, but was captured Tuesday morning when residents in the neighborhood reported seeing it, Middleton said.
One of the dogs had a tag identifying it as coming from Orange County. Middleton said officials with Mission Viejo Animal Services indicated the tag had belonged to one of a pair of pit bulls there that had been involved in a previous attack.
The dogs had been classified as potentially dangerous and their owner had been ordered to notify animal control officials if they were transported to a different locale than the home to which they were registered, Middleton said.
Middleton said the license plates of the Orange County dogs' owners matched those of a truck parked at a residence near the scene of the Lake Elsinore attack, but the officers were unable to contact anyone there.
"We believe it's those dogs and the same owners," she said.
(North County Times - November 3, 2011)