Kathleen Sullivan told Butler County deputy dog wardens that she was standing by the bus stop at the corner of Cedar Creek and Birch Hollow Drive at about 8 a.m. with her dog on a leash.
“Two random dogs came running up and started biting my dog,” Sullivan said, adding she tried to get her dog away but could not. “The two dogs were pit bulls and began pulling and biting my dog. I let go of her leash, and one of the dogs carried my dog away in her mouth.”
The little dog was found laying in a nearby yard, and neighbors were able to contain the two large dogs that did the attacking as well as two puppies with them. Sullivan rushed her dog to a veterinarian, where the prognosis is not good, according to the report from the West Chester Police Department.
The attack was witnessed by several neighbors and children at the bus stop.
A neighbor Scott Swanson said he too noticed the dogs roaming the neighborhood, and one of the pit bulls lunged at him in the garage. Debbie Binder said her son saw the dogs and warned her not to let their dog out. The dogs come running and barking and tried to enter the house when she opened the garage door, Binder said in her statement.
“I believe if I had not slammed the door, they would have attacked my poodle inside the house,” Binder said in her statement.
The two adults dog were registered, said Kurt Merbs, deputy dog warden supervisor, and the owners were issued citations for failure to control the dog.
Tavin Singh, of Jims Court, is the owner of the pit bull mix and Zuhair Al-Hayek, of Tylersville Road, is the owner of the Cane Corso. The puppies were not licensed and Imad Alyan of Cincinnati took ownership of the them because the owner is in jail, according to the dog warden’s report. He was issued a citation for failure to restrain dog and no license.
Merbs said unless the dog attacked dies, the law doesn’t allow for stiffer penalties.
“As of this morning (Thursday), she was hanging in there,” Merbs said of the poodle.
By law, a dog can be is declared a nuisance if it tries to attack a person or approaches them in a menacing fashion. They get an upgrade to “dangerous dog” if they have bitten a person (unprovoked or when the person wasn’t trespassing) or killed another dog.
The “dangerous” classification requires the dog’s owner to pay an extra $50 license fee and obtain liability insurance. The dog must wear a special tag, which has a picture of a snarling dog with sharp teeth inscribed on it, be in a locked enclosure, on a leash when off the property and be spayed or neutered.
Last summer, there were about 30 dogs on the dangerous list in Butler County, many of them pit bulls. The list also includes Rottweilers, shepherds, cattle dogs, golden retrievers, Chihuahuas, an English Mastiff and a shih tzu.
The most serious classification of vicious dog requires a dog to kill or seriously injure a person, and usually results in the euthanization of the dog.
(Journal-News - May 14, 2015)
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