SOUTH CAROLINA -- A Sumter man is in trouble with the law after his pit bull dogs attacked his neighbor's Chihuahua and then attacked that neighbor two weeks later.
"We woke up to some noise outside at about 6:30 in the morning, 6 o'clock in the morning on Friday," said victim Mark Cox. "And we opened the back door and these dogs were actually on our back steps."
Cox said he noticed the dogs were fixed on his back door so he slipped out the front to lock them inside his gate. "As soon as I clicked the lock and it snapped shut, they all four turned and looked and started running toward the gate," he said.
Cox said the pit bulls forced his gate open. He tried to jump his fence, but he couldn't make it over.
"When I went down and they initially started biting at me, my first thought was I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make it out of this," he said.
The attack left Cox's shorts ripped and a gash in his leg.
Just two weeks earlier, the same pit bulls cornered Cox's Chihuahua inside his garage leaving puddles of blood on the floor. That attack sent Cox's dog to the vet and left him with a $780 vet bill. He also spent another $600 dollars on a fence.
Cox said he worked out a deal with his neighbor, Eric Melton, to cover the vet bill and to keep his dogs restrained. Melton told WIS he agreed to pay the bill but that changed when the second attack happened.
"I tried to address this neighbor-to-neighbor and all that resulted in was be me being attacked a second time," said Cox. "So I feel like at this point it's serious enough and dangerous enough where I need to address the matter through law enforcement."
Sumter County Animal Control went to Melton's house Tuesday to make sure he's following the county's policy of keeping his dogs locked inside while deputies investigate the attacks.
Melton said the reason his dogs jumped on Cox was because he's hit them in the past with a wiffle bat.
Melton said pit bulls don't forget. He faces hundreds of dollars in fines.
"I didn't require stitches, but it could have been worse," said Cox. "And I'm much more concerned if it had been my wife or daughter and they would have been able to pull them to the ground. It might have been a completely different situation."
(WISTV - Sept 13, 2011)
