Mobile County Animal Control said Monday they captured all five dogs that mauled Deborah Quinley near her home on Sunday. Quinley had to receive stitches on her face, arms and legs as a result of he attack.
Animal control officials said the five mixed breed dogs captured match some of the descriptions of those seen at the zoo, but cannot confirm that they are the same ones. Officials said the leader of the pack, a male labrador retriever was the first to lunge at Quinley, who was on her way to do laundry this weekend.
"I just shooed them," Quinley said grimacing in pain. "I just shooed them off, and stomped my foot to make them go away."
Quinley said that's when her living nightmare began. Officials said the labrador retriever latched on to her arm, and the rest followed.
"He grabbed my arm, and he bit on my arm, and I couldn't make him let go," Quinley said. "A bull dog jumped up, and she bit my face."
"I stepped out the door, and I heard her screaming," Quinley said, "and I ran down the trail there, back behind the trailer, and when I came around the corner that was the awfulest thing I have ever seen.
"She had a dog on each limb, and one on her face, and they had her completely off of the ground and in a full shake."
Quinley said he ran the pack of dogs off with his wife in his arms, not realizing at first how bad her wounds were.
"Her nose was split from here (pointing to his brow) to her lip," Quinley said, "and one side of her nose was sliding down her face."
"There was blood everywhere," Deborah Quinley said. "I could feel it pouring down my legs like water."
Jerry Quinley said it was something that could have been prevented, he said, if Mobile County Animal Control did more to remove strays from his neighborhood.
"They don't do anything," Quinley said. "every time anybody out there calls, and says there's a dog (that has) been dropped off, they say, 'Ok, we'll see you in two weeks,' and they don't show up.
"My tax dollars pay these people, and now my wife is torn up from these dogs and I don't like it. I'm outraged."
Mobile County Animal Control Field Supervisor Carmelo Miranda called this a "serious incident", and the third call they've received about dogs being dropped off in the Quinley's neighborhood in as many months.
Miranda said, for his team of seven animal control officers, it is an ongoing battle.
"I could go in tomorrow to Bohannon (Road), take all the dogs there," Miranda said. "By tomorrow afternoon, somebody will come by and drop (off) more dogs."
"It's much larger than what we can control. So we fight it every day."
Miranda said the dogs are being treated as strays, though they are healthy and well-fed. He said if the owners do not claim the dogs in seven days the dogs will be euthanized, and sent to a laboratory for rabies testing.
Deborah Quinley said she fears her teenage son, who saw her that day, will live with scars deeper than hers.
"My little boy saw me," Quinley said sobbing. "Oh it was bad. I couldn't even send him to school. He don't want to come out of the house.
"I can't never take that out of his mind. I can't ever erase that."
(Local15TV - May 22, 2012)
