NORTH CAROLINA -- A woman claims her neighbor’s dogs have killed three of her dogs over the last nine months, and other neighbors said the animal owners still have most of the dogs.
Andrea Johnson said Riddick was killed in her backyard on Monday. Johnson said several neighbors witnessed the attack.
“I went to my kitchen and looked out the window and saw the dog attacking,” said Phyllis Whitehead, neighbor.
“It just mauled that poor little dog and it had no chance. None,” said Lynn Heffner, neighbor.
But Johnson said the dogs, which she identified as pit bulls, have done this before.
“(They) jumped that fence into this yard and then jumped into my yard and attacked my dogs on three different occasions,” Johnson said. “Yesterday was the last one.”
Johnson said she found her first dog, a lab mix named PeeDee, dead in her back yard last June. Then on Nov. 21, Johnson said her doberman pincher Sugar had been fatally attacked.
This last attack happened while Johnson was in the middle of building a larger fence.
“Now it’s too late, because my last dog is dead,” Johnson said.
In November, Guilford County Animal Control issued the owners a verbal warning after an eight-day investigation. Animal control seized one of the dogs on Monday after it was caught on Johnson’s property.
“The other ones they can’t do anything with, basically because they don’t see anything was wrong,” Johnson said.
Neighbors said the owners still have custody of the animals. Johnson said the owners haven’t yet apologized.
We tried to reach the owners for comment Tuesday, but they weren’t home. The dogs also couldn’t be seen during our visit.
“If y’all don’t put a stop to these dogs, who knows?” Johnson said. “Next, it might be somebody’s little child, her child, my child, their child, that little boy right there. I mean, who knows?”
A spokesman for Guilford County Animal Control said no one was available for an on-camera interview on Tuesday. The spokesman said it’s up to each officer to make a decision about verbal warnings.
Current North Carolina law says animal control doesn’t have to remove an animal if it kills another animal. Animal control can remove animals if they bite, maim or kill a human, however.
A Winston-Salem couple, Kim Thore and Jon Epstein, is pushing for Jackson’s Law, which would require dogs that kill other pets to be removed from the property and evaluated.
(My Fox 8 - March 20, 2012)
