January 18, 2001|By Lisa Pollak | Lisa Pollak,SUN STAFF
No matter how they act, she knows they all ended up on death row for the same reason. People let them down, by not taking appropriate responsibility for their dogs, by encouraging them to be vicious, or simply by putting them in positions where they were likely to behave that way.
"There are days when I just want to go home and scream," says Boss. "Ninety-nine percent of these bites could have been avoided by just a little more responsibility from people. For every aggressive dog, somebody, somewhere is responsible for that."
Often, it isn't purposeful; people just don't know what they're doing. Boss understands. She had a lot to learn when she got her first dog almost 30 years ago. That Charlie, a black Lab Dalmatian mix, lived to be almost 16 and never bit anyone seems like something of a miracle today, considering that Boss made a lot of the same mistakes that owners who testify at hearings do.
Many don't know that chaining a dog outside unattended, besides being illegal in Baltimore, can cause dogs to become frustrated, or that dogs who have not been spayed or neutered are more prone to aggressive behavior. They don't know how to appropriately discipline or train their pets.
Now a professional dog trainer and board member at the Maryland SPCA, Boss saw the job as head of the hearing board as another way that she could help people learn to better care for their dogs.
"I'd like people to not have to learn the hard way," Boss says. "I'd really prefer that people find out about this stuff before they blow it.
"It pains me to see that people basically write their dog's death sentence by failing to do things."
Roughly half the dogs who have hearings are sentenced to die. Boss does not enjoy signing the death warrants. But headlines like the one last week - "Escaped Pit Bull Attacks 7-year-old" - are sobering reminders of how much is at stake with each decision.
Unfortunately, the board has given the benefit of the doubt to a few dog owners whose pets went on to bite again. Thankfully, the dog in last week's incident wasn't one of them.
"It's very upsetting to me when a child is bitten," says Boss. "I don't want to let that child down by letting that dog go back into its neighborhood and letting this happen again."
