% they say the dog is man's best friend. but what happens when dogs attack? >> poor guy never got up again. the rights of the owners, victims, and the dog, straight ahead on equal time.  % from san jose state university and kteh, you're watching equal time, exploring new issues each week, giving equal time to competing points of view. hello, from the campus of san jose state university. and welcome to this edition of equal time. i'm your host, professor bob rucker. you see dogs everywhere here in the bay area and most of the time they are approachable, friendly, and loveable. but what if they are not?

as cassandra pena reports, there's more and more regulations to deal with dangerous dogs. >> at the park in san jose, don marshall wilson's outing with her dog turned deadly this april. >> i was riding an adult tricycle around this path here and when we got up to approximately where that light post is over there, i saw these dogs coming across this open field from over here, and they just ran as hard as they could. >> reporter: he says the dog attacked her huskey. >> so i got off my bicycle and went over to where the dogs were just chewing up my dog and started beating on them violently with my bicycle chain. >> reporter: the 13-year-old huskey suffered severe injury. wilson was cut and bruised. >> i suffered a lot of bites on

my hands. i have a pretty large contusion on my face. i had stitches on my lower lip. >> reporter: but the pitbulls ran off. san jose animal control sergeant responded to the attack and said there are more than 1200 dog bites reported in san jose last year. and 56 hearings to determine whether dogs were dangerous. >> the city defines the dangerous dog as a dog that has injured a human being. >> reporter: specific dogs are labeled as dangerous because of the animal's history, not the breed. >> we don't really do it by breed, because we as a department do not believe that it's a breed-specific type behavior. >> reporter: but according to the centers for disease control, pitbulls killed more humans than any other breed. in a nationwide study spanning two decades, rottweilers, german shepherds, huskeys, mal

mutes, dobermans also ranked high on the list. >> well, believe it or not, actually dog bites are actually responsible for about one third, or account for one third of a homeowners insurance liability portion. >> reporter: spokesman for the insurance information network of california says the liability is not in owning the dog. the liability comes with what the dog does. once the animal bites, the owner is faced with expensive costs. >> the dog bite-related claim averages about $25,000 per claim. so you can see it's fairly expensive. >> reporter: according to centers for disease control, dogs bite nearly 5 million people a year. but even if the dog bites, there is hope. attorney andy shores says many people are unaware of this type of coverage. >> lot of people don't realize

it, but most dog owners have liability coverage for the damage caused by their dogs through their home owner's policy. >> reporter: since california has some of the strictest bite laws, homeowners or renters insurance is important for both the protection of the dog owner and the victim of the attack. and when attacks occur off property, city-wide ordinances can come into play. dog owners are expected to follow city rules to avoid potential consequences. >> often the dog is off leash and if there's a violation of the leash law, there's presumption of negligence on the dog owner. >> reporter: owners whose pets attack not only face the possibility of being sued, but the consequence of euthanizing their dogs. animal control sergeant says officers have had to put down dozens of dogs after attacks have been reported.

the animal's life is contingent on the outcovet hearing. >> pending the hearing, we'll cite from there. if the dogs are not deemed to be euthanized by the hearing officer, which is an option for vicious dogs, then the dogs could go back to the house. >> reporter: and it's not just the attacker, but -- [ indescernible ] on that night in the park, shadow was so injured, a vet recommended he be put down. >> poor guy never got up again. when we come back, we take a look at how more and more cities are getting involved with pet ownership. >> it's good to be given the chance. we look at what happens to dogs classified as dangerous, when equal time returns. 

% most people agree in our society there should be some basic laws governing the animals in society. but what about those situations that could become very serious? once again, here's cassandra pena. >> reporter: this dog may be labeled as dangerous, but people choose them regardless. >> once i got my first pitbull, it was all over.

i couldn't get enough. >> reporter: he owns two pitbulls and says his dogs are nowhere near dangerous. he says he raises them in a way they would be loyal, yet approachable. >> i get a lot of people that clear the street. they see us coming down and walk to the other side of the street. and it's okay. everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but it's good if you see them to give them the chance to see what kind of dogs they are. >> reporter: some people insist the dog's behavior is a direct result of how the dog is raised. >> people get dogs in general and don't train them and think they are going to come out well behaved. it's not the case. you got to really train them. >> reporter: this pitbull owner and regular dog park visitor says he takes his dog to the park to interact with other dogs. >> i'm trying to get him out there, so he's around other dogs, so he's familiar with them. >> reporter: he feels his pitbull is just like any other

dog, saying it's important his pet is -- [ indescernible ] >> i think television has a lot to do with it. >> you hear stories and they don't put the entire facts, when you're watching the news, say pitbull attacked this or that. if you go deeper into the story, there's usually a history that goes back. >> reporter: while it's debatable that the media helps promote the stereotype of dangerous dogs, some people feel dog owners are responsible for their animal's behavior. >> occasionally, like i said, you'll get one in here that shouldn't be in here. >> reporter: this man owns a labrador and says he's mindful of his surroundings when he takes his dog to the park. >> i did see one guy last week come in with his pit and it was all studded out, you know, and he was pretty macho and it was obvious this dog did not get along with other dogs and he let it off the leash and it just started picking fights. >> reporter: according to the center for disease control, almost two-thirds of dog bite

injuries occur to children 4 years and younger. tracy rodriguez says when she was two years old, she was bit twice from her family pet. >> on the grass, went in the house to go grab something and within seconds, the dogs bit me. >> reporter: while the memories have faded, the scars remain. >> side of my face right here. it happened twice. i have it down here and right here, the first bite here. then the second happened up here underneath my eye. >> reporter: owning a dangerous dog is not illegal, but owners do have to abide by city ordinance. violation of dog park ordinance can bring a $1000 fine. while it is unclear whether dangerous dog behavior is due to the dog's training or breeding, it is clear when people are near a dog, they should be mindful of their own behavior. >> you read the dogs. you kind of read the owner. first impressions are huge anywhere you are, you know. so when a dog came in, if it's,

you know, ears are back, tail's under, i know i got to go slow. or if it comes barreling in here, i know i got to have a little bit more control. >> reporter: natalie keener, owner of canine concept has been in the dog grooming business more than 15 years. she says she's handled dozens of dogs whose breeds are known to bite and believes it is up to humans to undo the stereotypes of dangerous breeds. >> they were bred for fighting, bred for baiting. we did that. we created this dog for a purpose, and maybe it was in the 16th century, or, you know, the 20th. whatever we created, we've got to uncreate. when we come back, we'll sit down with a panel of experts in search of solutions. stay with us. ,

% welcome back to equal time on the campus of san jose state university. today, our focus, dangerous dogs. we have some very interesting guests today, including-- >> telly lehman with the insurance network of california. >> i'm natalie keen of canine concepts professional dog grooming in morgan hill.

>> i'm ryan sill tan, student at san jose state university and i'm a victim of a dog attack. >> i'm a retired software engineer and i and my dog are avictim of a very vicious pitbull attack. we thank our guests for being here. there are no dog haters here, but this is a serious concern in our society. ryan, what happened to you? >> well, i was first time going to my -- met them a few weeks before he called me to go to his house. on my way up to his house, kind of a steep hill. i'm going up at night. i guess his rottweiler is a little bit of a rambunctious dog at the time. he jumped up on me and i lost my balance. i got knocked into the fence and he just went after me. i guess maybe he thought i was -- i mean, he was chained up. i was on his property and he unleashed on me pretty much. did you have to go to the hospital or doctor? >> i could have, but i didn't

really didn't need to, cuts on my hips, left leg. i patched up myself and next day went and got a shot for precautionary reasons. unfortunately you can relate to that. you went through the horrifying story we heard earlier on equal time. what can you tell us about that moment and what it feels like? >> actually my great concern at the time was for my dog and trying to get those pitbulls off of my dog. i can't remember experiencing pain from the bites i was getting, okay. i guess the adrenaline was pumping. you feel very strongly that something needs to be done. you have a very strong opinion on what needs to be done with owners and their responsibility. >> yes, this is correct. i don't blame the dog so much as the owners that would allow their dogs, that nature of a dog to get loose and in this case kill my dog. what about that? owners being more responsible. is it our fault?

>> i think education is our fault. i think we need to go after education and, you know, if we are educated on how to handle and treat those dogs, you know, hopefully they won't attack. that's terrible. i want to come back to that in a minute, but telly, i want to bring you into the conversation. insurance. we don't normally think about insurance when it comes to dogs and dog bites. >> one of the things about a homeowners or renters insurance policy is they include liability coverage in case of someone slipping or falling on your appropriate for example. if you have a dog, you may want to check how much liability coverage you have. should your dog attack someone between medical costs and jury awards and adjustments, that sort of thing it, can cost very high dollar amount to the homeowner. if your liability policy is only, say, $100,000, you may not have enough coverage to protect you financially for anything beyond that, because that's something you're responsible for. so if you get a dog, what you

want to do is do homework, find out how much liability policy you have, liability coverage you have, and maybe look into extending that, bring it up to 300, $500,000, maybe even a million dollar umbrella policy. $400,000 was the figure i heard you say? >> no, nationally, it's about more than $400 million nationally as a result of claims on liability policy as a result of dog bites. and did either of you two pursue this in court with the owners of the dogs that bit you? >> i kind of teased my friend and said if there's anything serious, i'm not going after your parents. i mean, literally, it scared me for months. i feel like a poodle, a weany dog, thinking that thing may come after me. mentally -- sciek logically, it built in the notion, these can be serious. >> yeah, it took a few months before dogs were okay now. it's just this one time where it was a freak accident almost. and don, did you consider a lawsuit or find the owners? >> if he they ever do, if

animal control ever locates the owners, you can bet i'll consider a lawsuit. you said earlier when we talked off camera that you would be in favor of lawmakers being really tough on owners. how tough? >> yes, i think financial responsibility is one thing, but i think that there's a certain class of dog owner out there that doesn't care about education, they don't -- they just don't care. and i think the only thing that is going to deter them is if their dog hurts somebody, their dog harms another animal, like these two did mine, they need some jail time. put them behind bars? >> you bet ya. >> i believe in education. you know, jail time is easy to throw. it's easy to mandate, but i think that if we educate ourselves, take obedience classes with the animal, learn how to handle that situation differently, it would be a

different outcome as a whole. unfortunately, two loose dogs without an owner there, i don't know what you could have done differently to stop them. maybe that-- >> but if they were educated, if the dogs had obedience class and you shouted a command, stop, no, off! maybe they would have-- >> well, i should point out that at no time did these dogs actually want to attack me. they-- >> but if you took control of the situation, if they knew that a human is the alpha and not your dog, they were going after, maybe they would have stopped. >> and in fact that may have been the case, because, again, they didn't attack me. the only reason i got bit and injured was because i was down fighting with the dogs trying to get them off of my dog. but they never released my dog and came after me. you mentioned that you use, you bring pepper spray when you go out? >> if i go for walks, yes, i

have a pepper spray that i bring. and, you know, where i walk is country, so we have mountain lions and other things. and i, you know, i am ready, looking around for that. i don't go out at night. i don't go out too early in the morning. >> you won't take your dog out on a walk at nighttime at all? >> mm-hmm. not even in my neighborhood, not by myself, no. when we hear of 5 million people around the united states are dealing with dog bites, we have to take that number seriously. but i'm sure that people out there are probably thinking, wait a minute, you're -- we all understand the importance of taking care of our dog, be responsible for our dogs, classes and education and more things to do. we are not the enemy here, folks! we're dog owners! we care about our pets and most of us take good care of them. what would you say to them? >> what would i say to them? >> yeah, that's enough, i don't need a class, i don't need education. >> there's never enough education. i've been a dog groomer for a long time and i'm still learning. let me play devil's advocate and say i think there

is a point where people will simply say i'm responsible enough, let me alone. >> oh, sure, sure. but if a case like that happens, where your dog attacks somebody, i think by law, you can, again, send them to a class, send them to where their situation -- and if they get sued, they might want to have gone to a class beforehand. >> you have to go to a class for a traffic ticket. right. >> you know, i think that education can never stop. very good. and telly, what about insurance companies? lot of people say look at them trying to put money in his pocket. why do we need insurance? >> i was going to mention responsible dog ownership. when you're choosing a dog for your family, family pet, you want to make sure you have the right choice. if you have small infants in the home, one of the things you want to do is make sure they are familiar with how do you bring up a puppy with a small child, probably make cute pictures, but unfortunately a puppy will see a child as a play toy, and you will see instances where bites to the

face and to the head are common with children under 4 years old. but one of the things that you want to do is do your homework before you purchase a pet. check with your homeowners insurer, because whereas most companies will cover any dog, regardless of what the breed is, they will cover it up to that first bite. then after the one that comes time to renew your policy, they will reevaluate the situation and say we'll either have to raise how much you pay for your insurance to cover that dog or we're going to have to exclude the dog from the policy all together. then there are also companies that say we'll cover any dog, except a list of these dogs. we won't cover those dogs. it's something you want to do homework on with your homeowners insurance prior to purchasing the dog, because if you don't want to change your policy, or change your company, if they say you can't have the dogs, you may want to look at some others. if you were to add on to your insurance if you don't have this type of coverage, what are we talking about in terms of protecting yourself as an owner >> well, homeowners and renters

insurance come with liability coverage. what you want to do is look at increasing the dollar amount, from 100,000 to 250,000 to a million dollars. it's not very expensive. every policy differs. but you're looking at $100 action maybe more per year. when we hear numbers, broadcast journalism students here did a wonderful job researching this. you hear numbers at the postal service, dealing with 2800 or more bites a year. this is a serious problem. a lot of us have it in the back of our mind, don, that we have had this under control since the '40s or '50s. why are we talking about dog control, dangerous dogs, when you have these number of bites and we talk about children a little bit more, as an owner, do you feel the responsibility to tell other dog owners, come, on we have to step it up? >> well, of course, certainly. i, i believe that it's the owner's responsibility when their dog is involved in

something like this. i do not blame the breed. i blame the owners. okay. when you blame the owners, you also are saying to the owner, i expect more of you than what you're doing. and that can be a very challenging fraud, if not comment directed to somebody. have you ever said that to someone? are you taking care of your pet, doing right by your pet, keeping them on a leash when they go out in public? >> i can't recall doing it recently anyway. >> okay. do you see that as a responsibility of dog owners? >> of course. it's -- especially if the dog is capable of inflicting that sort of harm. they need to have the, the mental state to keep their dogs under control and they also have to have a physical ability. i have seen people out there with large dogs that were too small to handle those dogs, if those dogs decided to break loose from them. >> and there are restraints for that. there's harnesses and there's really deep leashes that we

have these days that will keep your dog right by your side. >> at all cost? >> at all costs. and rottweiler with petite women. it's kind of like a gentle leader, they call it, and it kind of squeezes the chest or keeps it like a horse, keeps the dog down. dogs won't go anywhere. i have a friend living in detroit who was delivering a package to a business that had a rottweiler in the building and unleashed. and when he went in to deliver the package, he was attacked and bitten severely. he to take time off, had to go to the hospital, and just to getting the company to respond, getting lawyers involved it, took more than two years to get a resolution. that's something insurance is supposed to be able to do. why did it take so long? >> well, every case is a little bit different. most cases move along relatively quickly. if you, for example, if i have a dog that attacks you, for example, if i don't take responsibility for that and you come to me and say, hey, look,

you need to take care of this, you're negligent, they will take a look at the whole case and the situation and my insurance company will help me through that process, but every case is a little different. it varies from time to time. >> could i make a comment in that regard? sure. >> in regard to industry, i think a pitbull or that sort of dog is the kind of dog that you want on your team if you're trying to guard your property. a junk yard dog, if you will. okay. but i really don't think that that sort of dog is appropriate for guarding a residential property. you want a dog that can bark and stir up trouble and bring attention, but some dogs that are going to actually attack and possibly kill, i don't think that's appropriate in a residential situation. >> and that's an important thing to remember, too. while dogs are great at watching property and barking and making noise, from the

insurance standpoint, the other thing that also works is dead bolts and locks, and in some cases get you a discount on your insurance. it's something to think about, dogs are not necessarily guard dogs. typically we look at it as a pet issue, but if you're thinking about a dog as a guard dog, you may want to think twice. because they are obviously trained differently, become more aggressive with somebody that comes on your property. most people are responsible. on a college campus, we see dogs running around all the time. does that concern you? >> not anymore. i could just -- lot of the dogs we see are majority small dogs i've seen. i mean, granted, last thursday, we did see a rottweiler running around loose, but he had a leash and he was running around, having fun. and that was a rottweiler. but it's on a college campus and anybody is susceptible. we have, what, 27,000 people in and out of this campus all the time. what's the concern we have here, as well as the faculty

and administration. the numbers we're hearing from the research is that two-thirds of the bites are across the country, are for children 4 years and younger. that is frightening. that scares a lot of people out there, because they are thinking, wait a minute, our children are the primary targets of these crazy dogs? tell me about your child and how you try to protect her. >> i have a 2-year-old in a grooming shop and i have dogs that we groom weekly, biweekly, monthly, and they are part of our family, so we kind of let them roam around a little bit, but if my child was in the shop, i would put those dogs back in their crate or back on the counter until she leaves, because they are an animal and she is young and doesn't know, you know, necessarily how to stop or approach or, you know, they -- she's a child. >> and the child may be curious, too. >> and she is. she loves animals, so she gets right in there. that's a big concern for me. i don't know if owners realize that having a dog loose, no matter what breed, a dog loose in a workplace environment, a

commercial environment, even academic environment, can be a potential threat that we're just not considering. >> even my own dog. i remember she's an animal first, and at home, she stays with me. i don't leave her in the room with my daughter. if i do, i take one of them with me and make sure that they are always, you know, interacting properly. very good. >> because she is a dog. very g before we wrap up, i want to ask you, since you've actually experienced this, what would you tell people that they should be thinking about in the future? >> well, from my standpoint, even though i had some protection and i thought i was prepared out there, i was ill prepared for that situation. maybe against one dog out there i might have had a chance. but against two dogs-- >> not easy to deal with. >> not easy. thank you all. you guys have been fantastic today. i appreciate that. we hope you stay in touch with us on facebook. don't forget to join us for another edition of equal time.