Carter Dexter and his parents were on the patio at the Steamhouse Lounge on West Peachtree Street on Sunday afternoon when the incident occurred.
“I was going to see the fish and I walked and I tripped over the leash and the dog came [and] attacked me,” Carter told Channel 2, showing his bandaged right arm.
A waitress, Toni Smith, said the dog “pounced on him and bit him.”
During the chaos, as Carter’s parents rushed the child to a hospital, the owner of the black-and-white canine – a woman in her early 20s – and her dining companions, a woman and a man, slipped out and vanished.
“She was on the phone, stating that Max, which was the dog's name, had bit a kid and she didn't know what to do. By the time I turned back around, she was gone,” Smith said.
Sam Weyman, owner of the Steamhouse Lounge, said, “They paid with cash, so we have no way to track them down.”
The party allegedly gave their names, but the names didn’t check out. Now, because the family doesn’t know if the dog had been vaccinated, Carter must submit to a round of rabies shots. The shots began Wednesday.
Debbie Dexter, the boy’s mother, told Channel 2 the experience is “not fun. The first round of shots was three lady nurses holding Carter, all tag teaming him giving him shots in the arms,” with one nurse “giving shots right in the wound – five shots in [the] actual wound itself."
The family hopes someone will step forward.
"It's very hard seeing your son in all that pain, and all this could've been stopped. That is what my husband and I have hardest time with,” Debbie Dexter said.
Anyone with information is asked to call Fulton County Animal Control at 404-613-0358.
(AJC - April 20, 2012)
