Letters: It’s the people, not the Pit Bulls

Re “Where fear is unleashed,” June 1, and “Dog owner is charged with murder in woman’s mauling,” May 31

The account of the mauling death last month of a woman in the Antelope Valley town of Littlerock is horrific. Just as sickening are the heartless dog owners who “drop off” their unwanted animals in the deserts outside Los Angeles and abandon them to a gruesome fate.

When will people recognize that responsibility for dogs and their behavior is ours? Yes, responsibility for the most recent mauling death may belong to Alex Jackson, whose dogs had reportedly been involved in multiple attacks. But many others are to blame for the stray dogs that bedevil Littlerock.

As one Littlerock resident was quoted as saying, Los Angeles County’s Department of Animal Care and Control is indeed a “joke,” but only because our leaders do not fund it as needed. Perhaps it takes a tragedy such as this to remind us of that need.

Elaine Livesey-Fassel

Los Angeles

Jackson, allegedly a pot grower repeatedly in trouble with the law, kept a pack of guard dogs. When the dogs did what they were supposedly trained to do and killed a passerby, officials vow “action on stray and vicious dogs.”

In the same town, inhumane people drop off unwanted dogs, cruelly leaving them to fend for themselves. Yet residents complain that Animal Control is too slow in dealing with problem dogs.

It’s not the dogs; it’s the heartless, irresponsible people. How is it OK for accused murderers to offer up the defense of abusive childhoods but abandoned, abused animals bear the sole consequences of whatever they’ve had to do to survive?

I guess people — egged on by the media — just like an easy target.

Beverly Delott

Pacific Palisades

I call my area, near Littlerock, the preferred dumping ground for unwanted animals.

Four years ago I found an American pit bull terrier running loose (actually, chasing my car). I stopped to check for ID and the little guy jumped in my car and sat down for a ride. It turned out he was microchipped, but the owner was unreachable, so I ended up adopting him.

He was a friendly dog, but he attacked one of my other dogs over a bone, so he ended up living in a kennel on the back of my property.

I gave him a good life. But this Memorial Day someone opened the gates, and my dog is now free to chase cars until he gets killed. No one will pick him up because he’s a pit bull.

It’s unfortunate that all pit bull-appearing dogs are judged because of Jackson’s pack.

Diane Silver

Lake Los Angeles

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