Posted on 03/18/2006 8:00:15 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
MOUNTLAKE TERRACE - A Tacoma woman is in serious condition at Harborview Medical Center after being mauled by a pit bull Friday afternoon.
Mountlake Terrace Police Chief Scott Smith said the woman in her 60s was walking by an apartment complex on 212th Street when the dog jumped over a small deck fence and attacked her.
"It was really awful," said Kathryn Goddard, who saw the attack. The dog "just wouldn't let go and kept shaking the lady."
Kathryn's mom, Dawn Goddard, also saw it happen. "I looked down right below my window and was watching this dog chewing on this woman's head," she said.
Smith said the dog dragged the woman about 50 feet down a hill and was clawing at and biting her head and legs for several minutes.
Dawn said the dog's owner was frantically trying to get control of the pit bull. "She was beating on the dog, she was doing everything she could possibly do to get that dog off of this other woman," she said. "That dog was not going to listen to anyone or any thing."
A resident in the apartment complex called 911 and police arrived and managed to distract the dog and get it to stop biting the woman.
But when the dog charged at police an officer shot the dog once. "Clearly this dog was going to attack the officer," Smith said. "So the officer did shoot the dog."
The dog ran back to its owner, who was able to get the pit bull on a leash, but Smith said the dog then began attacking the owner.
Snohomish County animal control officers arrived and took the dog to a veterinarian where it was euthanized after the owner gave permission.
The dog's owner was taken to a local hospital to be treated for bites. Smith said the woman who was attacked and dragged was expected to recover from her injuries and would be spending the night at Harborview in Seattle.
The pit bull was about two years old, and Smith said there were no previous reports of problems with the animal.
If your going to shoot, shoot to kill. The officer should have killed the dog, not wounded it. What the heck were they thinking?
No mention on whether the brain will be tested for rabies? Attacked the owner, after being shot once?
Yikes.
Good thing it's dead. There's a guy, Cesar Millan, who can rehabilitate most throwaway dogs, but man... that's bad. I don't know if he could even fix that one.
Ever try to hit a moving target when there are innocent people around?
Is this near you, Hair?
Someone should have shot that dog much earlier.
This is another reason why it is good to have a gun.
Yes, I have. The officer shot the dog when it tried to attack him, if he can hit it once, he shouldn't have much problem hitting it twice.
Will someone please ban these dogs in neighborhoods. Or, can I keep a cougar at my house?
Too bad only the idiot "my dog is nice and would never do that" pittbull owners still believe that.
Whoops, I think there is a policy against personal attacks on here and I should not have called pittbull owner idiots. But, I can not think of another word for them...
Rabies is less common in this part of the country than nutty pitbulls are. I wouldn't suspect rabies necessarily.
tuffy - not real close to me... this is a suburb of the Seattle area.
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Please check out this link!
I'm not sure sure about that... but they definately are the people most likely to not be able to ~afford~ an accident.
Don't tell me that Pit-Bulls are just like any other dog you just have to know how to handle them. BullShit.
They use the dogs for protection. They let them roam their environs or territory and woe betide any innocent child who gets in the way.
Also, some use them as entertainment, to fight OTHER pit bulls...and they gamble on the outcome. Cockfighting, only with pit bulls against each other. I never saw any of those dogs...they would have had some scars. The ones I saw were VERY well-kept dogs.
So, is this also [in some protracted way] Bush's fault?
Sure, but why stop at pitbulls. Let's ban Rottweilers, German Shepards and Dobermans also...and don't forget the Mastiffs and Rhodesian Ridgeback. I've also heard Jack Russell terriers are vicious as heck....
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