Last week, the lower house of the California State Legislature passed a bill requiring dog owners to spay and neuter their dogs. Violators would have to pay a $500 fine.

As the measure reaches the state senate, however, it has brought howls of protest from breeders, and threats from the American Kennel Club to pull the nation's second-largest dog show from the state.

Unquestionably, domestic animals should be spayed and neutered unless they are breeding stock. The animals are more healthy, less likely to bite, and do not produce unwanted offspring.

The bill should be enacted into law. (To read the comprehensive article by Samantha Young on MyWay, click here.)

If you live in Tennessee, you need to push Governor Bredesen to sign four new laws that will help to protect you against vicious dogs, while remaining fair to all dog owners.

Click here to open your email program with the governor's email address. Then copy and paste the following into your message:

"Governor, I urge you to sign SB 143 / HB 108, SB 537 / HB 548, SB 139 / HB 106, and SB 140 / HB 107. These laws will promote responsible dog ownership, help to control dangerous dogs, and protect our children."

Click on "Read More," below, for summaries of the four bills.

On June 17, 2007, a 1-year-old Chow killed its owner, Phyllis G. Carroll, 63, in Connersville, Indiana. This was the first canine homicide in June; there were four fatal attacks in May, all in one-bite states. Indiana is a statutory strict liability state. (To read more about statutory strict liability, see Legal Rights of Dog Bite Victims in the USA.)

I see many serious injury cases involving Chows. Based upon my experience representing only dog bite victims throughout the USA, the four most dangerous breeds of dog are the pit bull, Rottweiler, Chow and Akita. These breeds also have been designated as potentially dangerous by other organizations and industries. Nevertheless, any dog can turn dangerous, or be friendly, depending on how its owner treats it.

For more on the Chow, read Chow Chow in the great Wikipedia. For more on why dogs bite, see Why Dogs Bite People.

Making matters worse for pit bull owners, it has been widely reported in the media that many of the most wealthy and famous in professional sports have been participating and betting heavily in dogfighting. (Read the article on the website of ESPN.)

Dogfighting is an activity in which pit bulls are placed into a pit, where they fight each other to the death. American pit bull terriers account for 99 percent of the species involved in dogfighting. This perverse, inhumane misuse of "man's best friend" replaced bear baiting when the latter was made illegal in the mid-1800's.

The growing number of pit bull attacks on people appear to be a natural consequence of the twisted evolution of the pit bull by depraved "Pit Bull Men," who strive to breed ever-more-vicious pit bulls, combined with the rampant proliferation of dog fighting. Pit bulls and Rottweilers have accounted for more than half of all canine-inflicted killings of humans in recent memory.

In the U.S., dogfighting is considered illegal in every state except Wyoming and Idaho, and in most states it is a felony. Despite that fact, according to The Humane Society, it's estimated that somewhere between 20,000-40,000 people in this country take part in this multibillion-dollar industry.

At this moment, attention has focused on Quarterback Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons, the allegation being that he is one of the heavyweights of dogfighting. Surry County Commonwealth Attorney Gerald Poindexter told The Associated Press that the investigation against Vick is "moving forward." (Read the article by clicking the link in the first paragraph of this post.)

Let's see whether there is a prosecutor with the heart to "sack" Michael Vick for his role in this base form of animal cruelty. Vick says that "everybody loves me," but see the video to judge for yourself whether dogfighting should make a fellow more, or less, lovable.

So far, 9 of the 11 canine-inflicted homicides in 2007 have been in one-bite states. These are American states which give a dog one free bite.

Less vigilance is required of dog owners in such states. The consequences of protecting dog owners from their own negligence appear to include these horrific, fatal maulings.

For details about the 11 fatal dog attacks, see Dangerous and Vicious Dogs. To learn more about the "one-bite rule," go to The One-Bite Rule.

The California Supreme Court decision rendered on May 31st will be particularly difficult to apply in a canine homicide case, including the Knoller prosecution itself. In fact, when the new trial motion is reconsidered by the trial court, the Supreme Court holding could easily result in the motion being granted a second time.

The Supreme Court says that second degree murder rests upon the defendant's awareness that his conduct would endanger the life of another. That will always be difficult to prove when the killing is accomplished by a dog. Here is why:

In California there is a legal presumption that dogs are friendly. Compare a dog case to a stabbing or shooting: when there is a fatal stabbing or shooting, the prosecutor does not have to establish that the knife or gun was indeed a deadly weapon, because their injurious potential is well known. Therefore a case of canine-inflicted murder requires proof of something not necessary in many other crimes, namely that the instrumentality that accomplished the act was known to be the opposite of friendly and beneficial to human beings.

This proof is especially difficult because of its subjective nature: remember that second degree murder requires, on the part of the defendant, a subjective awareness that his conduct would endanger the life of another. Most dog owners believe that their pets are friendly, helpful and loving -- Marjorie Knoller believed this and testified to this effect in her trial. In this type of case, that conduct may consist of merely letting the dog out or taking it for a walk (Knoller herself had taken the dog to the roof because the animal was very sick the day it killed Whipple). Exactly how would a prosecutor prove that the dog owner had this subjective awareness?

There is another reality that a prosecutor will have to face in this kind of case, and that the trial judge will have to consider when ruling again on the new trial motion. It is extremely rare for a dog to kill a person. People are killed more frequently by lightening than by dogs. In the United States, approximately 70 million dogs kill only 20 to 25 people per year. For that reason, a walk with your dog is more likely to see you killed by lightning than to see a neighbor killed by your dog.

Keep in mind that the Supreme Court specifically ruled that having an awareness that one's dog might inflict severe bodily injury is not sufficient for second degree murder charge. To get convicted, the dog owner must have an awareness that death might result. If a dog owner has any appreciation at all of the vicious nature of her pet, it is most likely that she appreciates the possibility that it will bite someone, not kill them. So this decision actually poses some significant barriers to these prosecutions in the future.

For comprehensive information about this case, see The Diane Whipple Case on the Dog ite Law web site.