City Agency Adds Details to Its Report on Pug Death

The strange and sad saga of an Encino pug dog that was skinned alive continued Friday when the city Animal Services Department released new information--including details of a similar attack in West Hills--to bolster its contention that the dog was killed by a coyote.

The agency reported 109 coyote sightings and attacks since 1990 in the same area, including a brutal attack on Tootsie, a West Hills poodle that was found skinned and mauled Thursday.

“All of this has brought us to the conclusion that [the pug] had been attacked by an animal and that resulted in the death of Pal,” said Dena Mangiamele, the department’s head veterinarian.

But in another strange twist to this case, the Animal Services Department confirmed Friday that it had sought animal cruelty charges against the 84-year-old woman who owned Pal.

Louise Wilkinson, who is deaf and nearly blind, found her 35-pound dog at 7:30 a.m. April 7 cowering in its fenced backyard with a large swatch of his hide removed. But Animal Services officials said she and her daughter, Carol Johnson, did not take it to a veterinarian until 2 p.m. The dog died later.

“We feel that waiting from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. to seek a vet’s care is inappropriate,” said Animal Services spokesman Peter Persic.

But the city attorney’s office declined to file cruelty charges against Wilkinson and Carol Johnson.

In a letter to the Animal Services Department, Richard Schmidt, a supervisor in the city attorney’s office, said the delay in treating the dog could have been due to Wilkinson’s “physical and emotional condition.”

Filing charges “would also cruelly compound the pain of what must be for Mrs. Wilkinson and her family a terrible tragedy,” he said in the letter.

The efforts to charge Wilkinson and her daughter have only aggravated the ongoing dispute between the department and animal rights groups that believe the dog was killed by a human attacker.

Both Tootsie and Pal suffered bite wounds around the neck and torso, a sign of a coyote attack, Mangiamele said as she unveiled gruesome necropsy photos of both animals.

Mangiamele’s conclusion was supported by Patrick Ryan, Los Angeles County’s chief veterinarian, who examined Tootsie the poodle, and Christopher Deam, the private vet who helped Mangiamele examine Pal.

Mangiamele said she released the new information in an attempt to repair her department’s image in the wake of harsh criticism by animal rights groups.

“We have been trashed in the media and we are tired of it,” she said.

But the new evidence was immediately bashed by the Los Angeles chapter of the SPCA and Councilman Nate Holden, who believes the dog was killed by a human.

Both Holden and the head of the SPCA also chided city animal services officials for seeking charges against the owner.

Madeline Bernstein, the executive director of the local SPCA chapter, called the attempts to charge Wilkinson and her daughter a “publicity stunt to deflect attention” from the department’s problems.

Wilkinson and Johnson could not be reached for comment.

Holden called the new evidence part of “a continuing cover-up” by the department. He charges that the agency wants to target coyotes to justify trapping and killing them.

“They have wanted to create outright war on the coyote and the council has not allowed that,” he charged.

But Animal Services officials rejected such charges, saying they support the current policy of educating the public on ways to live with coyotes.

Coyote traps are provided only to residents who have met a series of conditions, such as erecting fences and keeping pets indoors.

Despite the findings of the Animal Services Department, the Los Angeles City Council voted last week to contribute $5,000 to a reward pool provided by animal rights groups and celebrities for information that helps to solve the attack on the pug.

The reward pool now totals $26,000.