The Pound Marks the End of the Line for Canine ‘Land Sharks’

Around the Lincoln Heights pound, they call Elena Kane the “beast master.” She supervises the so-called animal control technicians, city workers who care for the stray and unwanted dogs and cats that are brought to the pound by the hundreds. More often than not, the job eventually requires killing the animals.

As distasteful as that task might seem, Kane and her technicians hardly appeared anguished Friday as they discussed a new city regulation that essentially makes mandatory the destruction of any pit bull brought to the city’s six animal shelters.

“I like the dogs personally, but they eat people,” Kane said, bluntly enough.

“Most of the time they are real sweethearts, real loves. But they can turn on you in 10 minutes. Now I’ve kept my distance because of the recent attacks. I like to think of them as land sharks.”

Added shelter director Mike Burns: “We see pit bulls at the front and back of crack houses, There’s been a 3-year-old who wandered into a (marijuana) patch in a drug house in San Francisco that was killed by a pit bull. The dogs are just being misused.”

Kane and others at the city’s flagship animal shelter pointed out that nobody enjoys putting animals “to sleep”--the familiar euphemism for death in the dog pound trade--not even a breed of dog that has maimed and killed people.

About 35,000 dogs and cats are brought to the shelter each year, and 12% to 15% of the dogs are pit bulls.

On Friday, six of the pit bulls were being kept in isolation pens. Signs at their cages identified these dogs as “evidence animals,” indicating that they were believed to have taken part in attacks that will lead to court actions. Their names ranged from Buck to Tofu.

During a walk from cage to cage, workers cooed at pit bulls. Tofu, a 65-pounder, wagged her tail as one of the technicians tickled her with a pen. Then, inexplicably, she turned mean, barking and growling. This, Kane said, is the way these dogs are.

“The dog is persistent,” she said. “The breed is absolutely persistent. It has a tendency to continue attacking or mauling to death. A pit bull will always win. They just have such a high pain tolerance it’s unbelievable. . . . And you have to wonder about the person who wants such a knowingly aggressive dog.”

Jesse Castillo, 23, who has worked six months as an animal care technician, said the new pit bull policy is “a good idea.”

“Except for the puppies, which are innocent, it doesn’t really matter to me,” he said. “And the puppies become adults. If you’ve ever seen this breed’s frenzy, you know it’s different than thinking about putting another dog to sleep.

“You have to take the good with the bad in this job.”

Under the new policy, which quietly took effect last month, stray pit bulls brought into the shelter must be held for seven days to allow an owner time to claim the dog. After that, the pit bull will be killed. If a pit bull’s owner delivers the dog to the pound, the animal has little more than an hour of life left, Burns said.

The owner is instructed that pit bulls are no longer being sold or adopted by the public, and must sign a paper acknowledging the dog will be destroyed. The pit bull is then held for another hour in case the owner has a change of heart.

A health technician injects the animals with a lethal dose of sodium pentobarbitol.

“It’s not an easy job,” Kane said. “But it’s painless. It’s really the best way for them to go.”

The dead animals are picked up by the city’s sanitation department and trucked to a rendering plant. Eventually, they are turned into fertilizer.