Pit bulls maul another canine at Dog Beach

Two pit bull mixes off their leashes attacked and killed another dog on Huntington Dog Beach Thursday afternoon, witnesses and officials said. Police and lifeguards got the dogs under control, according to an Orange County Animal Control Services official.

An animal control officer came out to the beach shortly after 2:30 p.m., animal control spokesman Ryan Drabeck said. He impounded the two dogs and took them to the county shelter in Orange. While a lifeguard managed to leash one dog, a police officer had used a Taser on the other, he added.

“We don’t know the circumstances that led to the use of a Taser,” Drabeck said.

With lifeguards focused on water safety during spring break, any lifeguard who managed to subdue a dog went beyond the call of duty, Marine Safety Chief Kyle Lindo said.

“That guard is braver than I,” he said. “Our focus is public safety, and I was happy he was able to get in and provide some control, but again that’s not our area of expertise.”

Martin Senat, president of the Preservation Society of Huntington Dog Beach, said he expected trouble when he saw the dogs and tried to dissuade the young women who led them by chain leashes. But he didn’t have the authority to keep them off the beach, he said.

“I met those dogs down there at noon,” he said. “One of them had a muzzle. I said, ‘Wouldn’t you be happier if you went to a dog park where they have fences?’ But she promised me she was going to keep them on a leash and keep them out of the way. I couldn’t call the police; you can’t arrest a burglar until he’s burgled the house.”

Officials don’t know who the owners are, Drabeck said. So at the moment, the animals will be held at the shelter and investigated as potentially dangerous or vicious dogs, he said.

Penalties are potentially severe, Drabeck added. Requiring muzzles, liability insurance, and “Beware of dog” signs are all common responses if an owner is found, he said.

Senat said he was “heartbroken” over the death, pleading for residents not to judge Dog Beach by one incident.

“When Disneyland has an accident, they don’t close down Disneyland,” he said. “They think about how they can make it safer. With 200,000 dogs coming here a year, and this is more than 10 years now, you can count these incidents on one hand. It’s very sad that people have dogs like that that just want to do damage.”

The beach has a good safety record that shouldn’t be overshadowed by one tragedy, Lindo said.

“I have a dog, and this is a traumatic thing to even think about,” he said. “But we have to be mindful that there are hundreds of thousands of people that visit Dog Beach every year. It would be a shame if anything of this magnitude affected that.”