I have a scary dog story that reminds me a lot of what happened to WTG and her doggie. It seems to have ended ok, if you're in the TL;DR club! (Because I am in the "write long and go on forever" club! har!)

So, when I'm working in my home office, I face the window and even though I have a computer screen in front of me, unusual movement will catch my eye and I can look up and out the window quite easily.

So just a bit ago, a very fast moving animal caught my eye, at first I thought it was a deer (it was that color and that height). It ran sort of across our yard and and across the street to where I could clearly see a dog walker with a small dog. The larger animal was indeed a dog, and a big one. It looked like it was all muscle.

I couldn't tell at first if the dog was after the human or the little doggie (I had my computer glasses on, that didn't help), but I grabbed my phone, yelled for Mr. SK, tried to get my regular glasses, and started moving from my office toward my front door. Meanwhile the person started to scream and, although at that point I couldn't see, it really sounded bad.

I started calling 911 and sort of ran out into my yard yelling. Mr SK was yelling too, I am not sure if I was yelling in English, we both might have been yelling in Japanese. The dog looked massive.

Just then, someone came whipping around the corner in a car and jumped out and from hearing them, I could tell it was the big dog's owner. She got the dog off of the smaller dog and was able to put the bigger dog into the car. (That right there is probably a miracle). The dog looked like a pit bull or pit mix, one of those big muscly dogs.

Meanwhile the police came on the line, and I had been directed to a different city since my cell doesn't have the local area code. So then I started giving them my info, trying to be calm even though I was anything but, while simultaneously trying to figure out if the big dog was going to jump out of the car again (the owner had all the windows down!) and whether it was safe to get any closer, and also trying to figure out if the dog walker was ok. Turns out she's a neighbor who we see when walking and chat with all the time.

She said she was ok, her little doggie had a nasty gash though, and as I approached them, we all started talking at once. As you do.

Apparently DogWalker knows BigDogOwner, we're all neighbors. DogWalker was trying to say what had happened, BigDogOwner was making excuses about how the dog got out, and I was asking DogWalker if she wanted dispatch to send an officer out. (That was kinda awkward!)

BigDogOwner said she would take the dog home and take DogWalker and her doggie to the vet and that she would pay for it. So they both told me no, no police officer needed. Another neighbor came out at this point... I eventually got off the phone with 911 dispatch.

So BigDogOwner left with BigDog, I got the contact info for DogWalker (whose name I now know) and told her that she should consider making a police report even if just to have it on record. I could tell she didn't want to because the other person is also a neighbor, but she did say this isn't the first time something like this has happened with that dog.

BigDogOwner came back, sans BigDog. And then she launched into this story about how the dog belonged to her dead brother-in-law.... Whatever.

Then the two of them got in the car and took DogWalker's doggie to the vet.

And just now I exchanged a text message with DogWalker so she has my phone number now and I told her I'd check on her tomorrow.

Hopefully both she and her doggie will be ok. The dog had a nasty gash that looked like it probably needed stiches, but didn't look like it was any worse than a gash and seemed otherwise ok. DogWalker had a little scrape/bite on her arm, it looked very superficial, but a bite is a bite. She actually said she doesn't know whether it was the big dog or her dog that did it, because she was trying to get between them to protect her dog. She also said that she thought the big dog was just going right for her dog's throat!

Anyway, ugh. I feel so bad for her! The whole thing was terrifying and I wasn't even involved!

So WTG, I think I have a little more insight on your experience. It happens so fast, doesn't it!

As soon as she takes the little doggie to the vet, animal control and police will get involved. The vet will have to report the bite that the small dog sustained and the skin break on the dog walker/owner. That will take the heat off of little dog's owner, at least. The report will happen and she didn't have to call.

Yes, it happens very fast. And those big dogs can do a *lot* of damage.

edit:

The one who came after us:



So glad things turned out (relatively) well...

quote:

The report will happen and she didn't have to call.

Oh my gosh, I am soooo glad to hear that!!!! I wonder if BigDogOwner will get a kind of rude awakening from that!

Yeah, that dog was just terrifying looking! I don't know what else to say except those dogs just look like they are all muscle! I have not idea what I would do if a dog like that came running up to me. Maybe I need to practice standing firmly and saying no.... Maybe Mr. SK should practice too. Make sure we're both speaking English, since there probably aren't many bilingual dogs around here...

BTW I plan to check on DogWalker tomorrow, I'll post if there's any update.

I posted a pic up above of of the one who came after us.

The animal control officer told me to try to stay standing. If the dog knocks you down, he's totally got the advantage. A 70 lb pit bull is all muscle and if it springs toward you and jumps it can definitely knock you off balance.

The problem is that they have large mouths and a very powerful clamping bite. Even if you try to fend off a dog like that by blocking with your arms, they can grab your arm, clamp down, and then shake their heads or pull back and shred the arm.

The dog who rushed Maggie and me did get his mouth around my forearm, but he didn't bite down. He actually had a very soft mouth. He was probably trying to play, but if my dog had fought back, or if I had tried to hurt him in an effort to get him to back off, he most likely would have flipped and started to defend himself.

People are badly wounded or killed by pit bulls all the time.

You might want to let dog walker know that you are available as a witness for the police to interview, if you're comfortable with that. That dog needs to be dealt with, and if no one makes a fuss when it gets loose like it did today, then it will only be a matter of time before it severely injures or kills someone.

I know it's hard, but you may save some little kid's life, or someone's beloved pet.

The corgi in my town who was killed by a pit bull earlier this year.

(auto-start video)

https://abc7chicago.com/pit-bu...s-corgi-dog/5892703/

I am pretty certain this dog was bigger than the one in your pic. It may have been a mix, but it seems like that type of dog.

Reading your comments is really terrifying. When I call tomorrow, I will definitely tell her I can be a witness.

Try to stay standing. I’ll keep that I mind. And btw we do have little kids in our neighborhood too. So it’s not hypothetical.

I hope the laws here are similar enough to where you are that the visit to the vet will trigger a police report!

jodi might have some insights as to reporting requirements regarding a dog bite, but I'm pretty sure all states require vets and hospitals to report any incident where a dog is involved and skin is broken. Exactly who they report it to might vary.

Not sure exactly how the police figure in, but you might learn from Dog Owner what the vet said is going to happen....

I think I said this in my thread last week...the animal control officer told me that it is mandatory for anyone to report an uncontrolled dog, even if no bite is involved, and that you can be fined if you *don't* do so.

He said he'd never considered writing a citation to anyone, but he wanted me to know how important it is for the incident to be documented, whether there was a skin break or not.

quote:

the animal control officer told me that it is mandatory for anyone to report an uncontrolled dog, even if no bite is involved, and that you can be fined if you *don't* do so.

Somehow I don’t think the people I spoke to on the phone had this in mind. First my call went to a different city and then they transferred me to my city police and I spoke with someone at the police station (i.e. not a 911 operator). The second person was basically saying “if the person involved doesn’t want to report it then there’s no point in sending an officer out there.”

In any case, whoever I spoke to may just not have known.

I’m googling around and can see that my state doesn’t have a “one bite” rule, IOW the dog owner is liable even if it didn’t have any reason to think the dog was dangerous... I also see that health care providers are required to report incidents where some one was bitten by an animal, pet or otherwise. But it doesn’t specify whether vets are required to report care provided to an animal from a bite by another animal... it seems there may be some state-specific differences. The laws I’m finding specify rabies reporting etc. But I’m not finding anything that says vets in this state are required to report dog-on-dog attacks... There may be that law but it’s not clear (including from looking at the state public health website)

Anyway I’ll post again if I have an update.

Ok I exchanged texts with DogWalker this morning. Her little doggie has to get stitches in three places! BigDogOwner paid all the vet fees, and DogWalker doesn't want to file a police report. I tried at ask if the vet reported it, but the text response was unclear. I let her know I could be a witness, but her response made it clear she doesn't want to pursue it.

I think I am going to call our police dept. on Monday during business hours and try to talk to someone more knowledgeable, I also remembered that there's someone on our local NextDoor (not this neighborhood, but our city) who has written about her experience with a local dog that killed her cat (in front of her children) and she wrote about local laws, so I'm going to ask her about that.

This dog is dangerous; he's already demonstrated he will attack unprovoked with intent to injure.

I can understand that DogWalker doesn't want to report this to the police (some people are non-confrontational) but I have to offer a thought experiment.

How does she think she'd feel if she saw on the news that a pit bull killed a dog? Or a child. And she recognized the dog as the same one who attacked hers.

I know it's hard, but she has a moral responsibility to report this. She could be saving someone from severe injury or death.

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she has a moral responsibility to report this.

I don't disagree with you, I'm just not sure how much I can do here, with someone I barely know... I'll call either our local police dept or the county animal control tomorrow and see what they say.

Agree on the moral responsibility (but I'm also sympathetic to your situation, SK). Sure, maybe it didn't turn out too bad for her (though a trip to the vet, injuries that required stitches begs the question in my mind). But what happens to the next person? What if it's a child out walking their dog?

I love dogs. I also spend a LONG time, and a lot of effort, training dogs. If you're not prepared to take that level of responsibility, you shouldn't have a dog anywhere in a city or town. Period.