Carr was the victim of a bad dog bite while playing at a friends house the afternoon of July 16.
“I will be asking the breed before I touch,” she said.
Carr said she was at her friend’s house on Spruce Street watching over a toddler boy with the homeowner’s dog, a pit-Labrador mix on a rope nearby.
The dog had never been a problem before and she had been at the house many times, she said.
“There was a little boy and he was going to pull the dog’s tail,” she said. “I moved the little boy away from the dog and set him down.
“When I set him down, that’s when the dog attacked me.”
Carr’s mother had been waiting for her in her car.
“When she came around the side of the house, it looked like a scene out of a horror movie,” Mrs. Carr said.
She immediately rushed her daughter to Polk Medical Center. Carr was then transferred to Floyd Medical Center in Rome, where she had to have surgery on her mouth.
“Her lip was slit all the way down,” said mother Carol Carr, “so they had to repair it on both sides and bring it up.”
Carr’s arms were also scratched from where she pushed it away.
Police and Polk County Animal Control were called, according to Mrs. Carr. The dog is quarantined to check for signs of rabies and will likely be euthanized, she said.
Cedartown police didn’t have a report on the incident and Polk County Safety Director Randy Lacey, who oversees animal control, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Carr still has a long way to full recovery, her mother said. Now, she has to eat out of syringes because she can’t open her mouth fully and can’t chew.
Stitches will come out soon, but doctors told the Carrs it would take a year for a full recovery.
Neither Chloe, nor her mother, hold a grudge against the dog’s owner. They are friends and their children will continue to play together. There will not be any litigation, according to Mrs. Carr.
However, Carr said she is telling her story as a warning to other dog owners. She said owners, particularly those owning dangerous breeds, need to be extra cautious with children around and should always provide adult supervision.
She also said all owners should make sure their dogs have their rabies shots.
(The Fish Wrap - July 27, 2012)
