Presa Canario bites woman's skull; Milwaukee animal control planning on releasing it to owner

Sunday, March 5, 2017
Eula Court, Glendale, Wisconsin 

Lori Turner and John Whitehead

Normal
Lori Turner is walking with neighbor John Whitehead near their homes.  They see another neighbor’s 117lb dog escape from his home.  Whitehead, eying the size of the dog, says he’s not getting anywhere near it. Turner, who’s met the dog before, isn’t worried.  The dog’s owner comes outside to retrieve his dog.

Not
The dog is a giant dog-fighting breed, specifically a Presa Canario, a Spanish mastiff breed created to hunt wild hogs and as dog-fighters.  When its owner comes outside to get it, it charges and attacks Turner.

"My head was inside of his mouth.”

The giant fighting-breed dog attacks Turner by biting her in the head, using its wide, heavy jaws to take an entire human skull into its mouth, and biting down. 

Whitehead, a football coach, saves her life by tackling both dog and owner, knocking them off Turner.

 "This dog is significantly larger than Lori. I heard it before. I saw it moving and there was no question it would have killed her. It would have been over,"

Lori Turner's skull, aftera Presa Canario attacks her

Official Response
The dog is quarantined by Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission (MADACC).  They plan to release it to the owner after the rabies quarantine has ended. 

"The circumstance that caused them to bite doesn't make them an aggressive dog all the time. It was a certain set of circumstances that led up to a point where the dog felt it had to bite," Kathy Shillinglaw with MADACC said. 

MADACC attempts to normalize the dog’s extraordinary and violent behavior by implying this sort of thing – attacking a strange woman off-property by biting her in the head – is just what a normal guard breed does.   

"This is a large, guarding breed dog. That is, their purpose is to guard -- and people use them for guarding and protection," said Karen Sparapani of MADACC.

Negative public reaction to having giant, skull-biting pit bull released to owner who named it Anubis, after an Egyption god of death.

A friend of Turner’s started a Change.org petition to stop the dog being returned to its owner and the neighborhood.  In 4 days, it got 250 signatures.  They intend to present the petition to city council.

Presa Canario "Anubis" held by animal control after it attacked a woman by biting her in the head

The dog
Anubis is a 117lb dog, claimed Presa Canario.  In news photos, it is apparent that Anubis has a fighting crop – the ears have been cropped very short, in the style of fighting dogs (prevents the soft flaps from being used and ripped away in fights). In common with very few pet dogs and virtually all pit bulls and similar breeds, Anubis has a history of multiple owners and a vague current residence.  Formerly owned by a Milwaukee man, he was recently sold to a man in Oconomowoc.  The dog – and presumably its owner – were staying in Glendale, but the person who owns or rents the Glendale home is not the dog’s owner.   Neighbors say the dog has been seen loose multiple times prior to the attack.

Dog expert says

An expert says the breed itself is not dangerous. But is massive and protective and should be under control at all times -- even in its own yard.

So a harmless breed can also be massive and protective and should be under control 24/7?  I think you have to choose here – either it’s harmless or it’s likely to be dangerous if not under external control.

Then the comment about the own yard, which perhaps unintentionally implies the attack took place in the owner’s yard.  

Chilling final paragraphs (FOX story)

Again, as far as the dog's owner is concerned, he does not live in Glendale. The dog is up to date on shots -- and that breed often sells for thousands of dollars. The owner has expressed interest in picking it up. Where Anubis goes from there is a question.

It should NOT be a question decided by the owner based on his/her financial investment.  This is a public safety issue, not one of property rights to the dog or emotional/financial attachment by the owner.  This dog didn’t just run off the owner’s property, it tried to kill someone without provocation.  It needs to be euthanized.

The Breed
The Presa Canario is a giant bulldog breed.  It originated in Spain’s Canary Islands, and the name translates to Canary Dog.  They were originally created as to hunt wild pigs (hog dogs) and for dog fighting – the two basic purposes of all bulldog breeds.  These two pursuits – mauling to death large animals and attacking and killing their own species – required the same wide mouth and heavy jaw, and the same low trigger point and mindless relentlessness of the medium-sized breeds known as the pit bulls.   And like them, the Presa has an ugly history of violence against humans.

 The Presa’s size and aggression has made it significantly less popular than the pit bulls; it’s more difficult to maintain and control 150lb dogs, and it’s harder to claim they’re harmless when they’re that large and that aggressive.  But despite their small numbers, they’ve made a name for themselves as killers.  It was two Presas that killed Diane Whipple inside her San Francisco apartment building in 2001; the case was a nationwide sensation in large part because at the time it was unthinkable that a dog could and would kill an adult.  Almost all prior fatal dog attacks had been on infants and children, who are far more vulnerable to a dog bite.  The Presas, by contrast, ripped out Diane Whipple’s trachea, biting and tearing at her so violently she was stripped of nearly all her clothing, and the coroner testified she had bite wounds all over her body.  The Presa Canarios in that case introduced America to the mauling. 

Other Presa attacks include the 2006 fatal mauling of Shawna Willey by her own dog, 120lb Xino.  She owned two Presa Canarios and a pit bull.  Xino ripped out her throat while her 9-year-old daughter watched; it bit her over six times on the back, arm and sides, and was shot to death by police.  The trigger? Willey had been bathing the animal.   In 2012, Rebecca Carey was mauled to death by multiple dogs, including two Presa Canarios.  She owned a Presa, 2 pit bulls and a Boxer mix, and was dogsitting a friend’s Presa.  Animal Control subsequently euthanized all 5 animals after police found a bloodbath they initially assumed to be a homicide.   

The Animal control agency 

MADACC- Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission
Opened in 1999, MADACC serves 19 municipalities and is open-intake.  Its creation enabled the Wisconsin Humane Society to go to a model where they could choose which animals to accept, and thus reduce their euthanization rate.Has volunteer group, Friends of MADACC, which commissioned a study in 2011 by UC-Davis. It showed that in 2012, MADACC euthanized 5,357 animals

"The circumstance that caused them to bite doesn't make them an aggressive dog all the time. It was a certain set of circumstances that led up to a point where the dog felt it had to bite," Kathy Shillinglaw with MADACC said.

Shillinglaw is the outreach coordinator and volunteer coordinator. She appears to have replaced Jessica Huber.

"This is a large, guarding breed dog. That is, their purpose is to guard -- and people use them for guarding and protection," said Karen Sparapani of MADACC.

Sparapani is the executive director, hired in 2013. She was previously the director of Elmbrook Humane Society.  In a 2013 interview, she said becoming no-kill was not her goal, as that was not the intended use for the shelter.  Her comments on a 2016 attack by two pit bulls on two teenaged girls was that Dachshunds and Labradors bite more than pit bulls, and that just because a dog bites doesn’t make it a bad dog.  She doesn’t comment on whether more Dachshunds attack so violently that police have to shoot them down to end the attack. 

She replaced Kevin Wilken, who moved to Saginaw County Animal Control Center in Michigan. He was reviled for routinely euthanizing pit bulls for space without temperament testing, purely based on how difficult they were to rehome.  He was blunt about it: 

“Every shelter’s overwhelmed with them,” Wilken says. “In summer time they didn’t even get temperament testing a lot of times because there were so many. You’re only able to place so many pit bulls."  

Wilken was fired by Saginaw in 2014 after a state review; one issue mentioned was the disrepair of dog kennels, one failure of which led to a dog “latching on” to another dog’s foot through a broken door and doing so much damage the victim was euthanized. His successor LeeAnn Ridley was also fired. 

Links

http://fox6now.com/2017/03/10/my-head-felt-like-it-was-in-a-vice-after-dog-attack-petition-aims-to-keep-animal-from-returning-to-neighborhood/

https://www.change.org/p/glendale-city-hall-stop-dangerous-attack-dog-from-returning-to-family-friendly-neighborhood

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2006-08-22/news/0608210508_1_pit-bull-shawna-willey-presa-canarios

http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2013/04/17/where-dogs-go-to-die/

http://www.mynorthshorenow.com/story/news/local/brown-deer/2016/09/30/dog-shot-police-after-attacking-14-year-old-girls-in-brown-deer/91322708/