HAWAII -- A Wailua resident and self-professed dog lover who once had plans to own a pit bull is now frightened at the sight of any dogs, even Chihuahuas, after a loose pit bull lunged at her young son and their small puppy.
“I’m terrified of any dog, and I have never been afraid of a dog before. And my kids are terrified, if they hear a dog barking they freak out,” said Sarah, who asked keep her last name from being disclosed.
About a month ago, Sarah was walking to a bus stop about a mile-and-a-half from her home to pick up her 5-year-old daughter, who was coming from school. Her husband was at work, so she took her their one-and-a-half-year-old son and the family’s puppy, a shih tzu/Tibetan spaniel mix, along with her.
As they waited longer than usual for the bus to arrive, Sarah let her son out of the stroller to walk around a little bit. She then noticed a gray pitbull charging toward them.
“He didn’t have a collar and it looked like he was out for fun,” she said.
Sarah said she immediately put her son and the puppy in the stroller and pulled down a mesh that covers it. She said when she bought the stroller, she hated the mesh and thought it was “the stupidest thing ever,” but now she realizes it probably saved her son and her puppy from being seriously injured.
As the pit bull approached them, she said “go away” and put her hand out for the dog to smell it. The dog started sniffing around, and then just went crazy on the stroller, she said.
“I’m not sure if he noticed the puppy, smelled the quesadilla my son was eating or wanted to attack the baby, but he lunged for the stroller,” said Sarah, adding that the dog started jumping on the stroller, biting and clawing at it.
The puppy barked once and her son didn’t scream, but the pit bull kept attacking the stroller. Without anything at hand to defend herself, Sarah started lifting the front end of the stroller to block the dog from getting through the mesh. As the drama unfolded, a passing car stopped and the driver got out to help.
The stroller’s mesh had a latch holding it down, but somehow the dog was able to undo it.
“The dog had just happened to hit the latch to make (the mesh) go up,” Sarah said. “He had his head in there right at the moment the guy pulled (the pit bull’s) head out. Had the guy even stopped a second later, the dog could have bitten somebody. … It was about to get really ugly.”
At that point, another man pulled up, she said. Both men tied up the pitbull and held it until Sarah’s daughter arrived at the bus stop.
As Sarah walked home safely with her family, it was only then that the seriousness of the incident hit her, and she broke down and cried.
“At home I couldn’t stop thinking about it; every time I’d shut my eyes I’d see this dog attacking the stroller,” she said.
The incident happened on Sept. 20, and it took Sarah a while to tell her story. She said she tried to forget about it, but rather developed some type of post-traumatic stress disorder. Whenever she sees a lose dog, big or small, she is terrified.
“I have always been a lover of the bull mixes; my last dog was an English bulldog,” said Sarah, adding that she always loved and wanted a pit bull. “Now I’m all prejudice against pit bulls.”
But more importantly than releasing stress by telling her story, she thought that this is safety issue that involves children, and therefore should be addressed.
“Truthfully, I would have dropped this and just dealt with it had I been alone, but my kids and the bus stop are involved, and now I am terrified for (my daughter’s) safety just getting to and from the bus because of dogs which, is ridiculous since it can so easily be controlled,” she said. “To this day I don’t know what happened when I left the bus stop that day.”
Before being attacked by the pit bull, Sarah said she didn’t think much of lose dogs.
“But now, every unleashed dog coming at me terrifies me, and I’ve never been afraid of a dog,” she said. “My daughter has only been riding the bus about two months and all this has already occurred. What’s next? Do we actually need to get bitten or have my puppy killed before someone actually cares about this situation?”
Sarah said she has not seen the pit bull ever since the incident.
(Thegardenisland.com - October 24, 2012)
