Fifteen months after Eden Goldberg was attacked by a neighbor’s dog — a traumatizing ordeal that left her with bite marks and gashes on her face, arms and legs — the Shelter Cove resident is still seeking justice. 

Despite months of back-and-forth with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Animal Control Division, Goldberg feels the county hasn’t done enough to resolve her case or address her concerns about “unsafe dog culture” in rural communities. Now, she’s launching a public safety campaign and pushing for changes to local policies to increase accountability for dog owners.

Goldberg, a local performer and emcee, is one of several Humboldt County residents who’ve spoken with the Outpost in recent months about encounters with off-leash or uncontrolled dogs that resulted in serious injuries to people and, in some instances, pets being maimed or killed. Those who sought help from animal control often said they were frustrated by the outcome of their investigations and disappointed to learn that the county’s current policies place the blame on the dog rather than the owner. 

“There’s a real gap in understanding going on here,” Goldberg said. “This wasn’t a case of bad dogs … [or] a case of dangerous dogs; this was a case of negligent human beings. … [The owner] made a negligent choice of who she left her dogs with … and he was negligent. It’s about the humans — that’s who I want to [be held accountable].”

‘That Dog Started Attacking Me’

Goldberg was attacked on the morning of Jan. 12, 2025, while walking her two leashed dogs — both Rhodesian Ridgeback mixes — on a Bureau of Land Management trail near her home in Shelter Cove. Minutes into their walk, an unleashed dog came bounding toward them “as if to play.” She could see a man a little ways up the trail holding the leash of a German Shepherd, and she called out to him, “Please leash your dog!”

The man either didn’t hear her or didn’t listen. She called out again, “Please call back your dog! Put him on a leash; we do not want to engage. I do not want your dog coming near us!”

“And then it started a dog fight,” Goldberg said, adding that she was shouting at the man to take control of the unleashed dog as she struggled to hang onto her own dogs. She would later learn that he wasn’t the owner of the dogs, but a pet sitter. “This guy … he just kind of froze. … And as soon as he walked [up to me] with the leashed dog, that dog started attacking me.”

“It mauled my left arm and … my right calf, and then came back around on my left side, and sank its teeth in my left nostril about an inch under my right eye. It was trying to shake my face to rip my face off,” she continued. “When I ripped my face out of the dog’s mouth, it slit open a one-inch gash … right under my eye … and I tucked my face in so it couldn’t go for my main vein.”

After a few minutes, the man was able to leash both dogs and get them under control. Goldberg, gushing blood and surging with adrenaline, said she needed to get herself and her dogs back to her truck immediately, and asked the man to meet her at the main road to swap information. There, he explained that he didn’t own the dogs, but was watching them for another Shelter Cove resident who was on vacation. He gave her his name and phone number, adding that he would tell the property owner about the incident. When Goldberg tried to call him later that day, she said the call didn’t go through and assumed he had given her a fake phone number.

The Outpost has omitted the names of the dogs’ owner and their handler in this story. According to Goldberg, both parties have been “non-responsive and non-compliant” since the attack occurred.

Goldberg pictured about 20 minutes after she was attacked. | Photo submitted.

After getting herself home and checking her wounds, Goldberg asked a friend to take her to the Shelter Cove Volunteer Fire Department for an initial medical assessment before heading over the hill to the emergency room in Garberville. A first responder took a dog bite report, and she was asked if she wanted to press charges against the owner or pursue a potentially dangerous dog hearing, which could result in anything from fines to court-ordered euthanasia.

“That was not the time to make that decision,” Goldberg said, later adding that she spoke to an attorney after the incident and is still weighing her legal options.

After completing the report, Goldberg was taken to Jerold Phelps Memorial Hospital, where staff assessed and treated her injuries. She sustained numerous bites on her face, including a gash under her right eye and several puncture wounds ranging from a quarter-inch to a half-inch deep. She also recorded puncture wounds and “severe” bruising on her upper arm and leg.

She would later discover that her bite report, which was filed with the county’s animal control division a couple of weeks after the incident, did not mention the wounds to her face. Frustrated, she contacted an animal control officer after she received a copy of the report in April 2025 and informed them of the error. She received a copy of the amended report in February of this year, 13 months after the bite report was taken. 

“I don’t know how many times I called them asking for an amended report,” she said. “I just remember feeling very frustrated, like, why is this a hard thing to accomplish?”

In the weeks and months that followed the attack, Goldberg struggled with psychological trauma and was diagnosed with Acute Stress Disorder by a therapist. The experience impacted her grad school studies and derailed her plans to care for her ailing mother, who had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. 

“It [was] extremely traumatic, and I’m a tough cookie, but I am still struggling,” Goldberg said. “It’s to the point where I have not hiked my dogs the one to two miles a day [that they had gotten used to] for over a year now. I don’t walk my dogs anymore, and … that is the best part of mine and my dog’s day. And I thought I was just the only one, [but] as I’ve started to talk to people, I’m finding everybody else feels that way.”

To get a better sense of the feelings surrounding local “dog culture,” Goldberg started talking to her friends and neighbors about their experiences with dogs in different areas of the county. At the time of our interview, she had spoken with about 50 people about negative experiences with off-leash dogs. 

“Moms expressed fear about their babies being on the beach [while] multiple dogs run around off-leash,” she said. “I’m not saying you have to live your life in fear, but moms are definitely concerned. An elder who’s lived here for 43 years was getting out of her car, and this black and white dog that’s been running free-range in our neighborhood bit her arm. … I’ve talked with doctors and nurses and grocery store owners who are like, ‘I can’t walk my dogs when I get home because there’s vicious dogs roaming.’”

While working on this story, I came across a Facebook post from Shelter Cove resident Kierstin Fernandez alerting her neighbors about two loose dogs that had killed her family’s cat. 

“I am creating this post to hopefully help the next family, but also because I am truly so sick to my stomach over what has just happened at my home,” she wrote in the March 4 post. “We had two dogs come onto our deck and kill our beloved cat and leave with her. … I have two small children, my daughter runs around outside my home all the time. How am I supposed to feel safe with these animals loose?”

In a follow-up interview with the Outpost, Fernandez said she didn’t know who the dogs belonged to, adding that no one had come forward to claim them after her Facebook post. 

“At the end of the day, I’m not trying to do anything to these people or their dogs,” she wrote. “I was hoping my community would come together and maybe know who the owners were before making a formal report. … I know accidents happen, and maybe the owners really never meant for their animals to get out but the dogs being that aggressive on an ‘accident’ does worry me still. I just have to hope that the owners are taking better precautions.”

Fernandez decided not to file a report with animal control. It seemed as though she just wanted to move past the traumatic incident.

Reached for additional comment on the issue of local dog attacks, Christopher Christianson, the general manager of Shelter Cove’s Resort Improvement District (RID), acknowledged that the coastal community “has no shortage of loose dogs,” but said they are generally well-behaved and accompanied by an owner.

“This isn’t a very common complaint,” Christianson wrote, referring to the prevalence of reported dog attacks. “In my experience as the General Manager, I’ve talked to one dog owner in the community after we received a complaint about his loose dog. Both he and his dog were very cooperative, understanding, apologetic and accommodating. On a personal level, a nearby neighbor’s two dogs were coming over to where I live in Shelter Cove and chasing my cats. That neighbor was also very apologetic and nice.”

Of course, that’s the best-case scenario. While dog-related disputes are often settled between neighbors without the involvement of city officials or local law enforcement, unchecked bad behavior can lead to horrifying outcomes. 

Many of our readers will recall in 2021 when a mother of five was viciously attacked by two pit bulls while helping a neighbor in Myers Flat. Her injuries were so severe that one of her legs was amputated. The dogs were declared “vicious” and euthanized, and their owner was prohibited from owning any other dogs for three years.

In March of 2023, Ted and Brenda Pease were attacked by a loose dog while walking their dog Stella in Trinidad. The dog bit a half inch of Ted’s finger off, bit Brenda in the calf and maimed Stella, turning her “face into hamburger and crush[ing] her foot,” according to Pease. A court hearing determined the off-leash dog, a 70-lb mixed-breed named Claudia, to be “vicious,” and required the owner to confine the dog and notify animal control officers if he moved. 

One year later, Claudia attacked again. The incident occurred at a home in Eureka where the dog’s owner had been staying with a friend. The dog attacked the homeowner’s brother-in-law during the commercial break of a football game, leaving him with facial injuries so severe that he was airlifted to UC Davis Medical Center for treatment. 

Another hearing was held, and the dog was determined to be vicious, yet again. The owner didn’t attend the hearing and animal control officers weren’t able to track down Claudia after the attack, according to Eureka Police Department spokesperson Rachel Sollom.

Similar to Goldberg, Pease believes humans should be held to account when a dog attack occurs.

“There are no bad dogs,” he told the Outpost. “That may be an overstatement, but most of bad dog behavior results from inattentive humans, training or lack of it. … In our case, the attack by a known aggressive animal [occurred] because the owner failed to restrain her on his property. The owner of the dog had no penalties that I know of, and returned with the animal to Humboldt a year later, when the dog attacked someone else. … Clearly, the owner was not held accountable.”

Pease acknowledged that “law enforcement has more pressing matters to attend to than dog issues,” but felt the “system failed in this case.”

The Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury explored this very issue in its 2018 report, “Dogs on the Run: Do County and City Animal Control Codes, Policies, and Procedures Adequately Protect Our Residents?” The report, which came about in response to a countywide uptick in dog attacks, urged local animal control agencies to increase staffing and communication across jurisdictions and improve follow-through with victims.

While strides have been made to improve staffing and interagency communication, there hasn’t been any substantial update to county code that increases accountability for the owners of dogs involved in violent attacks.

‘Public Safety is Our Primary Concern’

How a dog attack is handled depends on the severity of the situation, Animal Control Facilities Manager Andre Hale told the Outpost. Generally speaking, victims are given two options when a dog bite occurs: 1) request a hearing for a “potentially vicious, dangerous or nuisance” dog or 2) file a civil claim against the owner of the dog. 

“If the situation meets the criteria/definitions in the county code for ‘dangerous’ or ‘vicious’, the victim can request an administrative hearing,” Hale wrote via email. “Animal control may take the dog for quarantine at the shelter and may hold the dog at the shelter pending the outcome of the administrative hearing. At the conclusion of the quarantine and/or hearing the dog may be returned to the owner. If a hearing was held and the dog was declared as dangerous or vicious, the owner will be required to meet the restrictions set forth in the code.”

Hale added that the dog’s owner “may be issued a citation for any violations that occurred,” but that doesn’t happen in every situation. 

Goldberg declined animal control’s offer to pursue a potentially dangerous dog hearing in her case, asserting, “If that other dog was on-leash, there would have been no dog fight, and there would have been no dog mauling.” She reiterated that “this was a case of negligent human beings.”

Goldberg argued that the county is failing to enforce laws that hold dog owners accountable, including California Penal Code 399, which imposes criminal liability for owners of “mischievous” animals that kill or cause “serious bodily injury” to a human. Penalties range from misdemeanor charges to felony convictions, depending on the severity of the incident.

“The negligence in this matter stems from the owner’s decision to entrust a powerful animal to an unqualified and untrained caretaker,” Goldberg said. “[PC] 399 requires that ‘ordinary care’ be taken to prevent an animal from causing injury. By delegating this responsibility to someone incapable of managing the animal, demonstrated by the lack of leash control, the absence of basic dog recall, then walking the second dog to my side causing me to be severely mauled, the owner created a preventable hazard.”

Asked why the sheriff’s office or animal control didn’t pursue changes under PC 399 in this case, Hale said there was no evidence that the dog that attacked Goldberg had a history of biting. 

“[PC 399] requires that the owner knew of the dog’s dangerous tendencies and failed [to] take necessary steps to prevent someone from being injured,” she wrote in her emailed response. “We do not have any evidence that is the case in this situation, as there is no known history of the dog biting.”

Goldberg pushed back, asserting that current interpretations of the code “often lean too heavily on the animal’s prior history.” In this case, the “mischievous” nature of the event was “not inherent to the dog, but was created by the human handler’s lack of training and situational awareness,” she said. “The law must hold individuals accountable for the negligent management and improper supervision that allow these dangerous encounters to occur.”

Hale acknowledges that there are “limitations to what animal control is able to do” in certain cases, “which often results in the complainants being frustrated or upset.” She emphasized that animal control officers strive to “do everything we can to address these issues.”

“Public safety is our primary concern,” Hale said. 

Reached for additional comment on the matter, Undersheriff Justin Braud explained that animal control officers may issue citations in some cases, but they don’t have the authority to arrest people. If Goldberg were to pursue charges under PC 399, the case would have to be turned over to the sheriff’s office, he said.

“Should it have been? I don’t know,” Braud said. “I don’t know the details of the case, but it’s a possibility [that charges could be filed] and I would encourage her to call us. … If there is a chance that it could still be or should have been investigated … I think that’s something that we can still try to fix and maybe create some clarification going forward.”

But to make that determination, Braud said Goldberg would probably have to go through a dangerous dog hearing. 

“I’m on her side about this,” he continued. “I think that people who have dogs not on leash out in public are super unsafe and not responsible at all. … I would be fully in support of there being changes to the county codes to put some sort of mechanism in place to hold owners liable, because I do agree that although animals are unpredictable — pet or not — that danger needs to be considered by people around them, but also the people that are maintaining them and taking them in public.”

While frustrated by her previous interactions with animal control, Goldberg said she is “fully open to working side-by-side with all agencies and sectors involved with dog-attack cases,” and hopes the sheriff’s office “can open a path for justice” for local victims of dog attacks. She noted in our interview that she’s filed a complaint with the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury.

Yellow Ribbon Campaign and Initiative

Hoping to “open channels of communication” around the issue and reduce bad interactions between dogs and people, Goldberg is launching the Yellow Ribbon Campaign and Initiative. The educational campaign, rooted in the Yellow Dog Project that began in Sweden in 2012, uses a yellow ribbon or bandana, often tied around the collar or leash, to indicate that the dog needs space and should not be approached. 

“When you have a yellow ribbon on your leash, what that symbolizes to the community is your dog does not want to be approached in any way,” Goldberg said, adding that there are a variety of reasons a dog would not want to be approached by strangers. While some yellow ribbon dogs may have a history of aggressive behavior, others may be in training, recovering from surgery or fearful of other dogs.

“My mission statement is to reorder the disorder of community dog safety through survivor-led advocacy, clinical reform and rigorous stewardship,” she continued. “We bridge the gap between education and accountability to ensure that space is respected, victims are supported, and the agency run-around ends. Our end goal is a healthy, vibrant community.”

Goldberg acknowledged that the initiative will have little to no effect on loose dogs, but hopes the educational campaign will drum up conversation about the issue and change the way people handle their dogs in public. 

Curious to hear a professional dog handler’s take, I got in touch with Janna Campillo, a longtime dog trainer and founder of the Redwood Coast K9 Academy in Fortuna. She acknowledged that it’d probably take some time for the Yellow Ribbon Initiative to gain traction, but thought it sounded like “a really good concept” that would be especially helpful in teaching children how to interact with dogs. 

“It reminds me of when I was a little kid showing horses,” Campillo said. “We would put a little red ribbon on the tail of a horse that could potentially kick another horse, and as little kids, we figured out really quickly that we better keep our horses farther away from horses with red ribbons. … This would be a fantastic thing to teach children. … I think it’s a great visual way to start spreading the word and allow dog owners to basically back up and support their dog if their dog is nervous and anxious.”

Like Goldberg, Campillo acknowledged that the initiative wouldn’t do much to solve Humboldt’s problem with off-leash and roaming dogs. Still, she felt that more conversation around the issue could only help dogs and their owners. 

“When people approach [yellow ribbon dogs], it only makes them more fearful. They need space, they need time and they need to acclimate to situations that make them afraid. People approaching them and trying to make friends, a lot of times, only makes that behavior worse. … I think it could be a good marker for social settings, especially for classes, public events or anything where dogs are respectfully on leash. It could take some time, but it might actually help owners who are a little bit shy about speaking up for their dogs.”

During our interview, Campillo underscored the importance of keeping dogs on leash in public spaces, “unless the dog has an impeccable recall.” One of the main focuses of her training classes is to get dogs used to walking on a leash. When an off-leash dog approaches an on-leash dog — especially one that is already fearful or struggling with anxiety — it can result in a dog fight.

“There’s an assumption that it’s OK — and this is my least favorite quote — because they’re shouting ‘my dog’s friendly’ as they’re running towards your dog that’s on a leash,” Campillo said. “Even my friendly Boston terriers will get defensive, and they’ve been around thousands of dogs in my training. … If a big dog runs up to them, they’re going to jump up and snap at them. And guess what? If that other dog doesn’t appreciate them snapping at them, then there’s going to be a dog fight, and then my dogs might get attacked. … The loose dog may very well be friendly, but the dynamic is unfair.”

Campillo described a recent interaction she had witnessed between a client’s dog and a stranger’s dog during an acclimation exercise at a local park with leash laws. She was seated about 20 feet away from her client and their muzzled dog when an off-leash dog came bounding toward them. 

“I said, ‘Don’t let your dog come over here,’ and here comes the dog,” Campillo said, adding that the owner of the off-leash dog claimed her dog wouldn’t have come toward them if she hadn’t said anything. “The dog proceeded to circle my client and her dog, while her dog was lunging and lashing out, and she was getting dragged all over the place. Luckily, the dog eventually ran over to my dog and me, and I was able to catch it and hand it back to [the owner]. … The progress we had made with my client’s aggressive dog had been completely wiped away.”

Campillo gave the dog’s owner a bit of a lecture, emphasizing that dogs should not run off-leash in public spaces unless they have recall. Even so, if there are leash laws in effect, she felt dogs should stay on-leash to be respectful to other dog owners.

“I’m not going to say that my dogs are constantly on a leash, but I’m very diligent and very aware,” she said. “I don’t let them off leash on trails and places where we can’t see around the next corner. It’s very appropriate when I do let my dogs off leash, and they’re very well trained.”

Goldberg couldn’t agree more, especially about dogs being leashed on trails. 

“It’s imperative that you have your dogs close to you,” she said. “It came out of nowhere, and this dog came running right at my dogs and me. It just happened so fast.”

Goldberg is still fleshing out the details of her Yellow Ribbon Dog Campaign and Initiative, which she hopes to one day present to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors. Eventually, she plans to partner with other local organizations to create a response network dedicated to survivors of dog attacks that can connect victims with legal aid, mental health resources and financial assistance. 

You can read more about it on Facebook and Instagram. Want to share your encounter with a dangerous dog? Fill out Goldberg’s survey at this link.