MISSISSIPPI -- A Kiln man is home after an attack Monday by four mixed-breed dogs that gnawed on his legs as he struggled to crawl away from them.
The dogs -- a male pit - bulldog mix, a male Lab mix, a collie mix and a shepherd mix -- will be quarantined at the Waveland Animal Shelter for at least eight more days, said animal control officer Colin Freeman. The owner, who officials did not identify because charges won’t be filed against him, can pay $150 per dog to reclaim them if they are cleared.
If he doesn’t pay the $600 fee, the animals will be euthanized, Freeman said.
Matthew Shea, 27, was released Wednesday from Memorial Hospital at Gulfport, where he was treated for serious wounds to his lower legs. Nearly two dozen staples hold the flesh together where the dogs bit his legs. A crucifix tattoo on his right calf was ripped in two by one of the attacking dogs.
Shea, on disability after breaking his back two years ago in a work-related accident, had hoped to make some extra money by cutting grass at a home on Carnation Street in Kiln.
Shea had spent the morning with his 9-months-pregnant wife, Amber, and their 2-year-old son at a small family cemetery in Silver Creek. He mowed the grass there and while he had the push mower in the trunk, he decided to stop at Amber Shea’s aunt’s house on Carnation to see if her neighbor would pay him to cut his overgrown yard.
Deborah Rominger of Kiln said her son knew the man had dogs, but thought they were in the fenced backyard.
Shea said he was talking to the older man through the door when the man opened it and his dogs rushed out.
“They were all biting me and I didn’t know what to do,” he said.
Shea bolted inside the house and crawled to the open door of a bedroom as the dogs’ owner tried to corral them into the backyard. Shea said he was “pouring blood” as the man got the dogs outside and when it was safe to exit, he went back into his car and rode down the street to the aunt’s house. He was met by an ambulance there.
Hancock County Chief Deputy Ronnie Cuevas said charges would not be filed against the dog’s owner.
County prosecutor Olen Anderson said the county’s nuisance-animal policy gives pet owners an opportunity to petition for a hearing when a dog has been seized by animal control officers. In this case, the owner voluntarily surrendered the dogs, which did not have immunization records, Freeman said.
Two younger dogs, both with current immunization records, were left at the home, Freeman said.
(Sun Herald - August 31, 2011)
