Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

In California, Jury Selection Will Begin Today in Case of Fatal Dog Attack

Aired January 24, 2002 - 07:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: In California, jury selection will begin today in the case of a fatal dog attack. Margery Miller and Robert Miller are facing murder and manslaughter charges in connection with the death of 33-year-old Diane Whipple, who was mauled to death by one of their dogs nearly a year ago. Whipple was attacked by two Presa Canarios, that's the name of the breed, in the hallway of her apartment building. The case led to a new state law making it illegal to house a vicious dog. But is this rare breed really a killer?

Irena Viaken (ph) breeds and trains Presa Canarios. She joins us this morning from St. Paula, Minnesota, along with one of her charges, and Bonnie Beavers, an animal behavior expert, and she is with us as well from College Station, Texas -- welcome to both of you -- nice to have you with us.

Irena (ph), let me start with you, and tell me a little about the breed. I'm not familiar with it. What kind of dog is this, and who buys them from you?

IRENA VIAKEN (ph), DOG BREEDER/TRAINER: Well, a Presa Canario is a mastiff family. They come from Canary Islands. They are guard dogs, but family guard dogs, very loyal to their human family, very sweet dogs, however, good guardians, so they protect their territory. As far as who is buying them, actually most of the customers who buy our dogs are just regular families, regular average people who are...

CAFFERTY: Is it true that you...

VIAKEN (ph): Yes.

CAFFERTY: Is it true that you turn down 7 out of 10 people who want these dogs? And if so, why is that?

VIAKEN (ph): Well, yes, it is true. We receive a lot of calls, and probably about 70 percent we would not sell the dog to, and it's not necessarily -- sometimes it's a person that shouldn't own a dog, and I can tell from the telephone conversation. And sometimes it's not a really good situation, the family situation or people work too long of hours, and they cannot take care of the dog.

CAFFERTY: Right. We're looking at some training video now, where the dogs are being taught to attack the trainers, who are wearing padded clothing. Why engage in training of a dog that looks to weigh as probably as much as a lot of men do to be this aggressive and to do this kind of behavior? What's the point?

VIAKEN (ph): Well, the point is there is a personal protection need for (UNINTELLIGIBLE) like for instance a police dogs. They do similar work. Only what we work with is people that want to have security in their homes, and most important in protection work is control. So the dog, it is very capable and very -- deal with a lot of abilities to do protection work. However, very controllable and stable, and just basically only for the family protection, that what it is.

CAFFERTY: All right, let me go to Bonnie Beaver, whose animal behavior, is joining us from Texas, and ask her. You just heard Irena say that they're controllable, that they respond to commands. What's your thought on what may have happened to this woman who was mauled to death by one of these dogs? Was there no one there to control the animal? Or was it possible that you just have a bad seed occasionally, a dog that doesn't know when to quit or is trained not to, perhaps?

BONNIE BEAVER, ANIMAL BEHAVIORIST: The episode that happened certainly is a tragic event, and there is no way you can replace the loss of the life. One of the concerns though is there is often an overreaction. There isn't a bad breed of dog, but there can be bad individuals with any breed. When you look at the number of dog bites in the United States every year, about four million, and yet we have about 54 million dogs. That gives us 50 million good dogs.

Training helps control the animal, and training for protection is often not as necessary as people think. There is an instinctive reaction by most dogs to protect their owners in situations where the dog considers the owner in trouble.

CAFFERTY: Let me ask you this. When it comes to dogs that are specifically trained to protect, to guard, and in some cases, to attack -- and not just Presa Canarios, but Dobermans, German Shepherds, and other breeds of that kind -- how much risk is there when you're training a breed of dog like this to do these kinds of jobs that you're going to encounter that one bad seed and not be able to spot it until perhaps it's too late?

BEAVER: Well, the most important part in training them is who is training them, and how they're trained. You can train some animal inappropriately just as well as you can train them to do things that are wonderful. Not every dog that is trained in guarding types of facilities can be called off. Others are very reliable and can be easily called off. So the type of situation, the need for the animals' protective training is going to dictate a lot about how that animal actually ends up.

CAFFERTY: Is it possible for you to speculate on what may have caused the fatal attack that's going to be argued in a courtroom today? And is it also possible to take an educated guess as to why the animal wouldn't have stopped?

BEAVER: Well, there are a couple of factors. One is we don't know exactly what happened, and there are many different kinds of aggression. But if this dog was, in fact, protecting the owner, this is protection from the dog's point of view. And so we are going to see the animal -- here is a person approaching my owner, and they're approaching too close. The dog may have responded in a protection mode because of that. Once the attack started, probably it's reasonable to think that the victim did flailing and screaming and so on, and that can then change the attack mode from one of protecting the owner to one in a response as if that victim was a prey animal.

CAFFERTY: All right, I appreciate very much your thoughts on what is going to be a very interesting murder-manslaughter trial that opens today later in California. Diane Whipple was the victim who was mauled to death by one of two Presa Canarios, and our guests this morning talking about the breed and the case and the whole subject of responsibility when it comes to training and owning attack dogs. Irena Viaken (ph), who has the only training facility in the country for Presa Canarios, and Bonnie Beaver, who is an animal behaviorist -- we'll keep you up to date on what happens in that courtroom. Thank you both for being with us this morning on AMERICAN MORNING -- I appreciate it.

BEAVER: Thank you.

CAFFERTY: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.