CALIFORNIA -- Natalie Lilley, of Saugus, was horseback riding with her 12-year-old daughter at 8:30 a.m. Friday when an unidentified woman “lost control” of her two dogs and they began chasing the horses and riders, Lilley said.
Because this is an active investigation, officials are not releasing the next step in finding the owner and the dogs, but confirmed that the owner of the dogs could be prosecuted for all damages done to the horse.
“We searched our databases, and found no dogs matching the description,” said Betsey Webster, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control. This meant the dogs were likely unlicensed, she said.
“One of the dogs is a charcoal gray pit bull and the other is a dark brown pit bull,” Webster said.
Lilley described the attack, which took place off of Honby and Soledad Canyon Road, as “traumatic.”
“I turned the horse to see the dogs coming when I realized these dogs were in attack mode,” she said.
“I screamed for my daughter to take off in the opposite direction. The dogs then took off after her, I ran interference and the dogs then came after me and my horse.”
The dogs, which Lilley identified as pit bulls, bit at her stirrups before she jumped off the horse and attempted to fend them both off, she said.
One dog managed to bite the horse in the abdomen before Lilley was able to urge her horse to run away without her, both dogs in pursuit. Neither Lilley nor her daughter were injured in the attack, she said.
The owner of the dogs, who allegedly refused to give Lilley any form of identification, and the dogs themselves “disappeared” before Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies arrived at the scene.
The horse suffered puncture wounds to the abdomen and had “chunks” taken out of its legs, but is currently recovering at a veterinary facility.
(KHTS Radio - Aug 12, 2014)
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