“Jonah never met anyone who wasn’t his friend,” EmilyPryor said. “People couldn’t believe how calm he was – never jumping on strangers, but sat waiting for someone to pet him.”
Emily and Scarlett Pryor rescued Jonah from a shelter, and he had been with them for four years. Their son, Jackson, 2, played with Jonah daily. “Jonah was so good that he let Jackson brush his teeth and pull on his ears,” Emily Pryor said.
Jonah was killed last week, by the teeth of the next-door neighbors’ pit bulls on Manorstone Lane in North Clarksville.
Now, the Pryors feel nothing is being done by Montgomery County Animal Control, whose hands may be tied by a lack of applicable city or state laws.
The attack
The Pryors’ other neighbor, Heather Calla, was outside with her own dogs at about 1 p.m. Friday when she heard a commotion across the high board fence. When she looked, the two pit bulls jumped over the chain-link fence in their yard and attacked the terrier.
“I saw them on top and attacking Jonah. I yelled to my husband, Joshua, for help,” Calla said.
Calla described the attack as brutal. They circled the terrier, with one on each side, pulling at his front legs.
“Joshua tried to use a stick to pull them off,” Calla said.
She said the neighbor who owned the pit bulls watched the scene unfold and did nothing but yell at her dogs as they mauled the terrier.
She did throw over a shovel for Joshua and told him to swat at the dogs with it, but as he did, one of the pit bulls bit him on the arm.
The pit bulls, Calla said, “were just standing there with blood dripping out of their mouths, just growling at him, not backing down,” Calla said.
Finally, the pit bulls’ owner jumped the fence and pulled the dogs off.
Calla, her husband and Pryor wrapped Jonah in towels and took him to a veterinarian clinic on Fort Campbell Boulevard, but the terrier died on the way. “The veterinarian said that if Jonah had lived, he would of had to have his front legs amputated,” Pryor said.
“My dog weighed 26 pounds. Jackson, my son, is not much bigger. It could have been him if I had let him out in the yard to play with the dog,” Pryor said. “That terrifies me.”
Limited by law
Pryor said there are normally 12 to 16 dogs in the backyard pens, and neighbors have suspected the dogs might be bred for fighting.
“You know they are not house dogs,” Pryor said. “They are outside day and night.”
Clarksville Police were called to the scene, but spokesman Sgt. Charles Gill said the officer did not see any dogs at large. The owners were not home, and no citation was given. The officer said a call to the Montgomery County Animal Control was made.
An investigator from Montgomery County Animal Control was dispatched Monday, three days after the attack, to take a complaint.
“The investigation is still ongoing,” said Tim Clifton, Animal Control director for Montgomery County. “We are still looking into it and have left the owners a note to contact us.”
Attempts to reach them were unsuccessful.
State and city laws, however, limit what Animal Control can do. Clifton said there is no state or city law in place that limits residents on how many dogs they can have, and the law does allow backyard breeding.
“The only thing the owner can be cited for is a dog at large, and we have to witness that in order to cite them,” he said.
(Clarksville Leaf Chronicle - May 20, 2014)
So MAKE some laws, JFC. This is totally stupid already.
ReplyDeletePoor puppy.