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| One of Williamson County's K9s in action |
The animal somehow got out of its kennel and bit two people in the Cambira neighborhood where its handler lives. Neighbors identified the victims as 80-year-old J.C. Leeper and his son-in-law, Art Moore.
"It's never done anything out of line before. Never been out of the pen before," said Lt. Jim Webb, "Definitely not normal behavior for this dog."
The sheriff's department added canine units to its staff eight years ago; the dogs are trained to find drugs and track down suspects. But on Friday, police had a run-in with one of their own animals while responding to a report of a pit bull attack in Cambria.
"Our canine officer responded along with other deputies and we found that one of our canines had got loose, got out of the kennel," Webb told News Three.
Webb explains that the Williamson County K-9 was actually a Belgian Malinois. The dog is an eight-year veteran of the force.
"This is a dog that last week that was at a local school, or multiple schools last week with students," he said, "It gets along fine in those type of settings."
The dog lives with it's handler in Cambria. The deputy and his family weren't home when the attack happened. State police are now trying to figure out how the dog got out of its kennel, and came to bite Leeper and Moore one block over, on Relative St.
"Both were transported to Herrin Hospital with what I believe were non-life threatening injuries," Webb said.
Officials say most of the men's injuries were on their arms.
"The first gentleman who was bitten, we don't exactly know what or how other than he said the dog was just there. The second gentleman was actually walking the dog back to its kennel," said Webb.
The dog is now in a 10-day quarantine, per county policy after a bite incident. The sheriff's department has three K-9s units and says this is the first time they've ever had a problem with any of the animals.
(WSILTV - Nov 25, 2011)
