Woman whose dogs mauled neighbor gets 15 to life: "SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A judge has sentenced a dog owner to 15 years to life in prison, seven years after her canines fatally mauled her neighbor in an upscale San Francisco neighborhood."
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This is a highly unusual sentence. Normally the owner of a dog that attacks somebody gets a small fine and maybe a civil suit. In this case, these dogs were huge, vicious beasts raised by white supremacists, and the owners were attorneys who represented the creeps and acquired the dogs from them. The woman who died was opening the door to her apartment and the dogs were in the hall with their owners. They attacked her and the owners couldn't get them off her. It was a horrific incident.

Apparently this was in an apartment building, but the issue that comes to mind is the presence of potentially dangerous dogs, such as those Presa Canarios, pit bulls, etc., in condo and hoa developments. Most condos have rules on the number and/or size of pets. Many HOAs are much less restrictive. I have been consulted by people who had problems with their neighbors' dogs, which were legal under existing rules but scaring the daylights out of everybody. Of course, the owners say the dogs are harmless and just look scary. Seems to me that this is a difficult situation where there are generally two sides to the story. There is no easy solution. Do you ban certain breeds, and if so, besides pit bulls, which ones? Do you give the dogs disposition tests? Do you go by weight? Give them one free bite? How much power should people have over the neighbor's choice of pet? Not an easy issue to be fair about.

(PS: would the pit bull lovers please spare me the lectures about what wonderful misunderstood animals they are? I've heard it all before and it is nonsense. I could fill this blog with stories of people mangled by pit bulls. I know some of them are great dogs, but they are unpredictable time bombs and should all be sterilized.)