Animal Services responds to ‘vicious’ Sonoma dogs

Speaking for the first time since a series of dog-bite incidents involving two Sonoma pit bulls, Sonoma County Animal Services said the agency acted according to county guidelines designating potentially dangerous dogs.

An Index-Tribune review of agency records shows officers were hindered in their investigations of multiple cases over the last five years by uncooperative or unreliable witnesses.

Instead, they trusted the dogs’ owners, Harmony Bolt and Mia Kniss.

“Just like with any other agency that is enforcing laws, there are limitations on what we can do,” Animal Care and Control Director Brian Whipple told the Index-Tribune. “In some of these circumstances, the victim or witness didn't want to cooperate. Without that evidence, it's hard to move a case forward into the court system. Without that it really makes it a challenge to prosecute cases that way.”

Animal Services has responded to at least 12 reported incidents involving the two pit bulls, Mac and Maggie, at the owners’ residence at 18350 Sierra Drive since 2018. The most recent attack, on June 5 of this year, involved a victim who required 30 stitches and spent six hours in surgery.

Animal Services officials have been criticized for not acting sooner, however Whipple said the agency’s hands are tied because animals are considered property, and property can’t be confiscated without due process.

Under California law, there are a variety of actions which may cause a animal control authorities to designate a dog as potentially dangerous. The first is triggered when a dog, “when unprovoked, engages in any behavior that requires defensive action” to prevent injury on two separate occasions within the prior 36 months.

The second occurs when a dog causes a “less severe injury” to a person when unprovoked.

And the final action is when a dog “has killed, seriously bitten, inflicted injury,” or harmed a domestic animal off the property on two separate occasions within the last 36 months.

The first incident

The dogs first landed on the county’s radar Sept. 15, 2018, when a man who lived in one of the units at 18350 Sierra Drive reported he had to swing a golf club at Mac and Maggie to prevent them from attacking him, “ ... but none of the dogs got close enough to the (reporting party/victim) to bite him,” the report states.

This would have met the criteria of the first statute, according to state guidelines, but the agency was unable to contact the victim through the given phone number. A witness of the incident spoke with the agency, but Animal Services was unable to verify the attack.

“Sure we have maybe some some circumstantial evidence, but a lot of times that's not enough to move a case through,” Whipple told the Index-Tribune. “So if we don't have a witness, we don't have evidence. Or if we don't have a victim that's willing to testify, then we don't have that evidence to move forward.”

Late investigation

Approximately five months later, on Feb. 5, 2019, one of the dogs allegedly attacked a man identified in Animal Services’ reports as “Mr. Alfonso” after Kniss assaulted him and allegedly ordered one of the dogs to attack.

Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies responded but found Alfonso had no injuries. As a result, Animal Services wasn’t notified until Feb. 19, Whipple said.

“Our procedures are to always contact the victim regardless of when the report comes in. It was an oversight on the officer’s part to not contact the victim at this time,” Whipple said.

The Animal Services officer is no longer employed with the county, and Whipple was unable to request further information about the incident from the former officer and their response.

Because the 10-day quarantine period — a precautionary measure for the threat of rabies — had passed, Whipple posited that the responding Animal Services officer treated the event as a rabies control case.

Since 2019, Whipple and Kevin Davis, the supervising Animal Control officer, have begun to regularly pull cases to review them for proper protocol. Animal Services leaders are working to “minimizes these kinds of lapses” and are making progress, Whipple wrote to the Index-Tribune.

Kniss pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor assault charges and was sentenced to 10 days in jail for the assault of Alfonso. Bolt, in a separate incident also on Feb. 5, 2019, was sentenced to a year in jail for burglary, trespassing, violation of bail and grand theft of the Sonoma Bungalows.

Animal Services did not provide a complete investigation of the incident until 18 months later after another incident, this one involving the death of a small neighborhood dog named Tagg on July 12, 2020.

However, Alfonso was unable to clearly identify the dog that attacked him from photos.

"It definitely looks a lot like (I) remember him, even before the pics I remembered the patch over the eye but I (can’t) remember if the coat had that much grey (sic) or more dominated by white,” Alfonso texted the Animal Services officer.

“I could have lost my life if I had panicked… I would be more than willing to do my part to make sure the justice is served.”

After Animal Services said they were pursuing a dangerous dog designation, the victim quit responding. The investigator then gave the owners the benefit of the doubt, records show.

The death of Tagg

The investigation into the death of Tagg was derailed because of the lack of an eyewitness.

The two pit bulls apparently were able to grab the smaller, white dog through an opening in a wood fence created by a broken slat.

However, because neither owner saw Mac and Maggie break down the fence, Animal Services said they had no witness to show Tagg did not enter the 18350 Sierra Drive property on his own.

“Ms. Bolt has said that she turned around and the dog was on her property,” Whipple said.

However, the report from the agency states “due to the construction of the fence, the pits were probably the ones that pushed out the fence board.”

Despite the conclusion made in the report, Animal Services — without a formal witness to the breakdown of the fence — was unable to declare Mac and Maggie potentially dangerous based on the lack of a formal witness, according to Animal Services.

Tagg’s owner said, “she didn't believe that her dog could have or would have gone (through) the fence on its own.”

Other incidents

Another report against Mac and Maggie on Aug. 20, 2020, just a month later, was dismissed because Bolt and Kniss stated the victim was drunk and trespassing on their property. Under the guidelines, that is considered a provocation and would not merit a dangerous animal designation.

Another report of a non-fatal attack against a Chihuahua on Aug. 8, 2021 at a Mirabel RV Park by one of the pit bulls was dismissed because the Chihuahua’s owner did not wish to cooperate with Animal Services.

It was not until a Feb 16, 2022 incident when Mac and Maggie would be declared potentially dangerous animals. A man went to 18350 Sierra Dr. property to visit a mechanic, the report states.

“A black pit bull came out and got very close to him. It sniffed his hand and then jumped for his throat,” the Animal Services report of the incident states. “(redacted) was able to block the dog with his left arm, but the dog bit his forearm.

The victim attempted to get the dog off, however, two other pit bulls began to engage in the attack. Eventually, two women at the property were able to separate the dogs from the victim.

On Feb. 28, an Animal Services officer contacted the victim who wished to pursue a potentially dangerous dog designation against all three pit bulls that attacked him. Animal Services officers took a photo of the injuries to the victim’s arms and back and took his written statement as evidence.

Animal Services officers spoke with Bolt on a call on Feb. 28. She “speculated” that the victim was trespassing — which would have protected Mac and Maggie under a provoked incident — and she informed the officer she would be moving out of the county to Hollywood that day, according to the report.

Bolt agreed to voluntarily designate Mac and Maggie, in addition to another pit bull named Hennessy involved in the Feb. 16 incident, as potentially dangerous dogs on Feb. 28.

Gabriel Kaplan, Public Health Division director, said Sonoma County Animal Services has instituted a new review process in the past six months pertaining to cases with deaths or injuries. In cases with poor outcomes, the leadership team reviews the facts of the case and asks, “what could we have done differently?”

One such review concerned the death of a horse in Petaluma earlier this year after months of a dog’s harassment led to the horse dying of exhaustion. Animal Services was constrained to take action because both animals were owned by the same person.

“Like it or not, animals are considered the property of the owner. And so they're subject to those same constitutional protections,” Kaplan said. “That might surprise some people in the sense that how that limits our ability to intervene.”

While Whipple and Kaplan showed empathy to the situations, they defended Animal Services’ responses to the incidents involving Mac and Maggie, arguing that if similar incidents in the future are to be avoided, the laws governing the agency will need to change.

“These ordinances have been in place for some time,” Whipple said. “Do we think there could be some cleanup and improvement? I believe so.”

“If the county wants to have a conversation about those principles and about the powers that Animal Services has in these instances,” Whipple said. “I think that's an interesting and important policy conversation that this board of supervisors may want to have with the citizens.”

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.