As he's recovering, the controversy surrounding the dog is just getting started. We got a first look at the devastating injuries caused by a dog that's bitten before.
“He has bite marks on his ear where the dog bit through it," the boy's mother Melinda Quintanilla said. "He has marks under his eye where a tooth went through and a bit on his leg."
She is still badly shaken after a visit to a friend's home ended with that family's dog attacking her 6-year-old son Dustin.
“Oh, my God, that dog is going to kill my son, my only son is going to die," she said of her reaction. "I grabbed my son and run."
Dustin was rushed to the hospital where he was treated and released, but Quintanilla can't release her anger. While the dog, a Rottweiler-lab mix, has been taken away, she wants the dog's owner dealt with, as well.
“I am pressing charges and I hope the owner of the dog goes to jail and gets some kind of sentence out of this because he's only 6," Quintanilla said. "He don't deserve to go to a plastic surgeon."
“That dog shouldn't have been up there," Huntington Police Detective Chris Sperry said. "This is the fourth bite. I want to be able to show this owner had to know this was an aggressive dog and it bit three other people, and now it bit two more yesterday.”
[I want to know why Animal Control is not being held accountable. Why didn't they do anything after the first bite? The second bite? The third bite??? Why did they keep handing the dog back over and over? This mother should be demanding answers to those questions.]
Sperry paid a visit to the Cabell-Wayne Animal Control following the paper trail on this dog as he seeks criminal charges against its owner.
“I want to be able to show an owner you picked this dog up after it bit another individual,” Sperry said.
“Now, my son has to live with the scars now. He's terrified of dogs now,” Quintanilla said.
The dog has been quarantined at the Cabell-Wayne Animal Shelter where it will stay for 10 days.
So, what is the procedure after a dog bites someone? We talked to Cabell-Wayne Animal Control.
They said anytime a dog bites, it must be quarantined at the shelter or local vet for 10 days away from other animals and all people.
After that, an owner can petition to get their dog back unless a case is made that the dog is vicious.
Then, a judge can rule for the dog to be euthanized. In this case, animal control says the owner has signed the dog over to animal control and asked them to euthanize it. That will happen after the end of the 10-day waiting period.
(WSAZ - January 24, 2012)
