Lilliana Lopez lost most of the left side of her upper lip when a 2-year-old pit bull named Spike attacked her, said Lopez’s mother Nina Sanchez, who was making supper at the time of the incident while Lilliana played outside.
The dog was secured on an 8 foot chain in the owner’s yard when the attack occurred. The owner, a 31-year-old woman, lives in the lower unit of a duplex on the 1000 block of Fifth Street. Sanchez and Lopez live in the upper unit of the duplex.
Sanchez, 28, said the dog also bit her son last year, but that bite was minor and the owners apologized and kept the dog chained in the yard when he was outside. Looking back, she said, she wishes that she would have been more insistent about keeping her children away from Spike.
Police have not yet released a report on the incident or the name of the dog’s owner. Police said they are expected to release a report today.
“If you have a dog with biting tendencies, keep it muzzled,” she said. “For $5, they could have prevented this.”
Lopez said the attack has not made her afraid of dogs or even of pit bulls. She said her father has a pit bull who is friendly.
Lopez said the attack has not made her afraid of dogs or even of pit bulls. She said her father has a pit bull who is friendly.
Amanda Cronce-Gardner, 33, lives next door and had interacted with Spike a few times, mostly when he was a puppy. She said she had never seen him be aggressive before Sunday’s attack.
Cronce-Gardner and other neighbors said they placed more blame on the owners and the way they raised Spike than on the dog himself.
“Punish the deed, not the breed,” said Michelle Witz, who lives about two blocks from the house on Fifth Street. “It’s all in how they were raised.”
Witz said she previously had a pit bull that was one of the calmest dogs she has owned.
[Do you notice a trend in these stories? People being quoted as saying they don't have a problem with pits, that they know someone who has one (or had one in the past). People who spout the mantra of it's how they're raised, it's not the breed, etc. I have yet to see an article about a dog attack involving a different type of dog in which people feel obligated to do this.]
Koua Moua, 43, has lived in the neighborhood for about six years. He said many people who live near him own dogs — though not many are pit bulls or pit bull mixes — and he has not seen or heard of other issues with dogs attacking children. He has a 1-year-old daughter, Azumi, but he said that he is not worried about the safety of the neighborhood; he thinks the incident likely is a one-time occurrence.
The Wausau City Council in February passed an ordinance that allows the Wausau police chief to ban from the city any vicious pets that have attacked or bit a person. Sanchez said the police told her that the dog would be put down.
(Wausau Daily Herald - May 14, 2013)
