By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 17, 2007

It was almost 11 p.m. as Danny Jones skateboarded home one Friday last month. The darkness didn't worry the Takoma Park 15-year-old; he knew every speed bump and curb cut on the four downhill blocks between his cousins' house and his own.

But this time, within yards of his front yard, a muscular brown dog came running out of the night, growling, unleashed and heading straight for him.

It was a pit bull named Dollar who lived a few doors away. Someone had left a gate open.

The attack lasted only minutes, but it was enough to send Danny to the hospital for three days. And it was enough to spark a community debate over whether the town's only known pit bull attack justifies a citywide ban on the breed.

A proposal to prohibit the dogs puts Takoma Park at the center of a conflicted and changing landscape of pit bull regulation in the Washington region.

The town is in Montgomery County, which not only allows the breed, but also has recently made it easier to adopt pit bulls from the county shelter. In 2006, the county lifted its blanket death penalty against stray pit bull puppies in favor of evaluating each dog's behavior and making only the most socialized available for family pets.

Prince William and Arlington counties have approved similar changes in their pit bull adoption policies. The District and Fairfax County also allow pit bull adoptions, and Alexandria and Loudoun County are considering it. But Prince George's County, less than a mile from the site of the Takoma Park attack, is home to one of the strictest breed bans in the country: Anyone keeping a pit bull faces up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. An effort to repeal the 10-year-old ban was overwhelmingly voted down two years ago by the County Council.

In 2005, an 82-year-old Spotsylvania County woman was fatally mauled by three pit bulls. Last month in Calvert County, where a 78-year-old was killed by his family's pit bulls last year, an animal control officer killed a loose pit bull after it charged a group of schoolchildren.

"An untrained pit bull is like a loaded gun," said Colleen Clay, a Takoma Park City Council member who lives near the site of the attack. She has asked the city attorney to research the legality of a townwide ban and notified her colleagues to expect the issue on the fall agenda. "The issue is a jaw that just clamps shut. It's just bone-crushing strong."

Danny Jones said he didn't know the dog charging him the night of Aug. 17 was a pit bull.

He provided this account of the attack:

He stepped off his skateboard when Dollar jumped up and put his paws on Danny's chest. For an instant, the dog's eyes followed the skateboard, rolling down the street. But suddenly the dog whirled, sunk his teeth deep into Danny's left bicep and dragged the 130-pound teenager to the pavement.

The dog let go when their bodies hit the street. Danny jumped up and ran around a parked car. But Dollar chased and lunged for his left forearm. This time, he clamped.

"I was punching him in the face with my other hand, but he wouldn't let go," Danny said. "It was terrifying."

Jim Flaherty, a neighbor out walking his dog, heard the boy's screams and rushed to help, but he couldn't force the dog away. Finally, Dollar loosened his bite enough for Danny to vault a low picket fence.

He ran to a stranger's house, his hands bloody, and rang the bell. He had puncture wounds on both sides of his arm, a two-inch chunk of muscle missing from his forearm and a partially severed tendon.

"I'm really sorry for what happened," the dog's owner, Richard Fuentes, said in a brief phone interview. "I've apologized, but I can't really say anything else about it right now."

Fuentes visited Danny soon after the attack and offered to pay his medical costs, said Danny's father, Meriwether Jones. But Jones added that Fuentes has since told him that his home insurance policy, like most in Maryland, doesn't cover attacks by pit bulls.

The two families are trying to work out an arrangement, Jones said.

The medical bills already total more than $12,000, he said, and will probably be substantially more. Danny was hospitalized for three nights with an infection. He sees a physical therapist once a week and does daily exercises to restore his range of motion.

The seriousness of Danny's injuries and the unprovoked nature of the attack have fueled calls for a ban, even though Takoma Park police have no previous pit bull attack on record.

"This is the first one I've heard of, but it was very, very egregious," Clay said.

If Takoma Park enacts a ban, the city would have to enforce it on its own, according to Steve Bartlett of the Montgomery County Animal Control Division. Bartlett's agency handles vicious-dog calls in Takoma Park, and he was the field officer who confiscated Dollar after the attack.

With Fuentes's permission, Dollar was put down after a 10-day quarantine period to test for rabies. But policing a ban, and determining whether a stocky mutt with strong jaws constitutes a true pit bull, would be different.

"What if the guy says it isn't a pit bull but a mixed-breed terrier? How do you tell?" Bartlett asked. "The county isn't doing that. Takoma Park would have to enforce that on their own."

The Prince George's ban prohibits anyone from keeping an American Staffordshire terrier, Staffordshire bull terrier or American pit bull terrier -- the breeds commonly known as pit bulls -- or any dog that is "predominantly" one of those breeds, according to Rodney Taylor, chief of the county's Animal Management Division.

It is up to his agency to judge whether a mixed-breed dog includes sufficient characteristics of one of the prohibited breeds to fall under the ban, Taylor said. Invariably, owners plead that their dog is not one of the bad ones.

"They say, 'He's never bitten anyone; he's not aggressive,' " Taylor said. "We have to tell them that it's not determined by the dog's behavior. Enforcement is determined strictly by the breed. It's very difficult. You hate to take anyone's pet away from them."

Pit bull owners are outraged by such bans and by what they see as the unfair rap against a breed that they say is no more dangerous than any other.

"The media have demonized this breed of dog," said Maureen Hill-Hauch, executive director of the American Dog Owners Association, which worked unsuccessfully to overturn the Prince George's ban.

"All breeds bite, but if it's a pit bull, they say, 'Let's ban them.' The American pit bull terrier is probably the most loyal breed of dogs you will ever find. I have four of them."

According to neighbors, Dollar seemed to be a well-cared-for family pet. It lived at the home of Fuentes's parents on Larch Avenue, a few houses away from attack site. When informed of the attack by Flaherty, the neighbor who came to Danny's aid, they were distraught.

"He was in shock," Flaherty said of Fuentes's father. "They were responsible dog owners. This was the only time I ever saw the dog loose."

Flaherty called the proposed ban "an extreme overreaction."

"I think this was an isolated incident, incredibly unfortunate and a terrible experience for this young man," he said. "But based on one incident, you don't ban a breed."

Danny is ambivalent about an outright prohibition on pit bulls.

"I don't really want to ban them," Danny said. "But I don't want to be around them."