Canine Analyst Defends Dog
This article was featured in the Jan. 5. 1983 Press Democrat

A self-styled canine psychoanalyst testified in Superior Court Tuesday that "Sport," a mean-tempered 93-pound shepherd, was simply exhibiting is natural protectiveness and not trying to attack when it was shot and killed by deputy sheriff last summer.

The dog's owner, Santa Rosa Russell O'Dell, is on trial for assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer for allegedly ordering the dog to attack during a routine traffic stop.

But Petaluman C.W. Meisterfeld, a dog trainer who describes himself as one of about 25 people in the nation practicing "canine psychoanalysis." told the court it is clear that the dog was never attack trained.

"An attack trained dog is a lethal weapon," the pet shrink testified, and "Sport" didn't qualify, he said.

The fact that neither Deputy Carl Dennis, who shot the dog, or Deputy John Pell, who came to his aid, were not bitten in the confrontations with the dog were proof of his lack of attack training, said Meisterfeld.

"An attack trained dog would have been in mid-air when it arrived." But most accounts had the dog snapping and snarling at the deputies feet and legs.

Meisterfeld's unusual testimony - perhaps the first of it's kind anywhere - is similar in many ways to that of psychiatrists who attempts to explain in court the psychological processes of human participants in criminal incidents.

His testimony is vital to Deputy Public Defender Gerald Villareal, who called him as a witness to counteract the testimony of a sheriff's office dog trainer who said he believed "Sport" was attack trained.

Even more important to the defense, Villa-real is hoping that Meisterfeld's testimony will show that since the dog was supposedly not attack trained, O'Dell lacked "the present ability to have the act carried out," an essential element of the assault charge.

O'Dell denied he ever ordered the dog to attack anyone. But even if he did, a crime was not committed if the defendant did not have the ability to harm the other person.

Prosecutor Mark Tansil argued to jurors that formal attack training is not an issue. "Sport," he said, was a vicious, over-aggressive dog with a history of challenging people and that O'Dell knew it and, according to the deputies, encouraged that behavior the night of Aug. 10.

"It is obvious the defendant was orchestrating the whole thing that night," Tansil said. "The dog was not acting as a total wild animal, but was being encouraged by its owner for whatever anti-social reasons."

O'Dell testified he tried to stop the animal several times and never ordered him to attack.

But the deputies said O'Dell intentionally riled the dog, yelling "get him. get him, get him" at one point. The defendant "laughed and smirked" at the dog's behavior, officers testified.

During cross examination by Tansil, Meisterfeld conceded that O'Dell showed some control over the dog's behavior that night, but insisted the dog was acting out of its natural tendency to protect its territory, in this case the car and its owner.

He also agreed that dogs can exhibit the same behavior patterns as their owners. Meisterfeld, who was paid about $800 for his research and testimony as an expert witness, said he was self-taught as a canine analyst.

"There is no academic teaching" in the field, he said.

Typically, he said. his task is "analyzing the mind of the dog to get to the cause of its problems" which usually take the form of viciousness and biting, particularly its owner.

Meisterfeld, who said he has written three books on the subject, said he usually spends two hours running psychological tests on pets and compiling a detailed history before developing a "rehabilitation program."

With Sport, however, that was impossible because the dog was dead when he was brought into the case. Instead, his opinions were based on police reports and interviews with the defendant, he said.

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