“I loved that dog,” Shea Cavacini said. “I’m going to blame myself forever. I ordered the euthanasia myself.”
The attack the night of June 11 came without warning.
“He made a negative move toward my younger son,” Cavacini said.
The next thing she remembers was Otto jumping up and clamping his powerful jaw on her forearm.
Cavacini's husband, Harry Illingsworth, said Otto would not stop.
Cavacini asked her husband to get some peanut butter, a favorite of Otto's, but it didn't lure him into releasing his grip.
Illingsworth finally reached into Otto's mouth and down his throat to cut off his air.
"It was very chaotic," Illingsworth said, who suffered bites to his finger and thigh.
Cavacini was flown by Life Star emergency medical helicopter to Hartford Hospital that night and had successful surgery there Tuesday.
Her husband was attacked and bitten on his thigh by Otto.
On Friday at home, both of Cavacini’s forearms were wrapped with bandages. She was unable to move her left one.
“She will eventually have her arms functional,” Illingsworth said. “She eventually will fully recover. The surgeon we had up in Hartford was unbelievable.”
Cavacini praised the people who responded to her home that night, including her colleagues at Northeastern Connecticut Council of Governments animal control center, one of whom was at the movies at Lisbon Landing when she responded to a call from Cavacini’s son.
In addition to her post in Griswold, Cavacini works at NECCOG part-time as an animal control officer.
She also praised two state troopers who arrived and applied tourniquets to stop the bleeding from her mangled arms.
“If they hadn’t applied the tourniquets, I might not have my arm,” she said.
APOLOGIST
Cavacini said something triggered Otto to attack that night, but neither she nor her husband know what it was. She doesn’t blame his breed, which has a well-earned reputation for being dangerous.
Pit bulls account for a majority of fatal and serious dog bites nationwide, according to a study by dogsbite.org.
“This is not a breed-specific thing,” Cavacini said. Rather, she said, it was the way his previous owner raised and trained him.
Cavacini, hired last year, came across Otto in January. She guessed him to be younger than a year old while roaming the streets, weak and emaciated.
She knows NOTHING of what its owner did or not do to this dog. They found the dog running around loose on the streets when it was just six months old. If it had been "trained" to be vicious, as this woman claims, it would have been trying to attack everyone from Day One.
The decision was made to put Otto in a foster home rather than in Griswold’s kennel for his health and safety.
“I said I would foster him here,” she said. “Otto was not my personal dog.”
Cavacini and her family, who have five dogs of their own, formed a bond with Otto, Illingsworth said.
“We took this dog in our house. We loved this dog,” he said. “No one was abusing him in this house.”
Otto was thriving, Cavacini said. In fact, she was making plans to put him out for adoption.
Cavacini said she is still recovering mentally as well as physically after the attack.
“Am I a little fearful? Yes, but it’s my job,” she said, admitting she won't foster other dogs now. “Never. Too heartbreaking.”
Norwich resident Chris McEwan owns a 13-year-old female pit bull named Brittany. An affectionate and gentle dog, McEwan said Brittany has been trained to help him cope with his sleep apnea.
“She wakes me up when I stop breathing,” he said. McEwan also has a heart condition and bilateral lymphedema, requiring him to avoid sitting too long.
“She knows when I’ve been too stagnant for too long,” said McEwan, who has owned several pit bulls. “They’re an awesome family dog. They just want love."
Like other pit bull advocates, McEwan believes pit bulls behave depending on how they were raised.
“If put in the wrong hands, anything can be deadly,” he said.
RAY CONNORS, APOLOGIST
Ray Connors, who supervises the Animal Control Division of the state Department of Agriculture, agrees with McEwan's assessment. His division oversees and licenses all kennels, pet stores and other animal facilities in the state, investigates large animal cruelty cases and assists local animal control officers.
“You have potential bites and injuries from all sorts of dogs,” Connors said. “It’s not the breed, per se. It’s how the animal was trained and raised."
STATE REP. DIANE URBAN, APOLOGIST
State Rep. Diane Urban, D-North Stonington, was the sponsor of a bill that bans towns from discriminating against specific dog breeds, by passing rules such as Providence’s requiring pit bull owners to buy at least $25,000 in liability insurance. The bill became a law in 2013 with almost no votes in opposition.
This legislative session, Urban sponsored a measure that would stop insurance companies from charging homeowners higher rates based on the breed of dog they own. The bill passed the House but failed to come to a vote in the Senate before the session ended. Urban plans to bring the bill back at the next session.
Why doesn't Diane explain why she's OK with insurance companies charging higher rates based on the type of car I drive? I'm going to pay a lot more auto insurance for a Cadillac Escalade than a Ford Festiva. That's discrimination!!! We should all have the same insurance rate, per Diane's reasoning, and ONLY the 'bad drivers' should pay more. She's a moron.
Urban said the bill provides safeguards letting insurance companies still charge higher rates when specific pets have been shown to be dangerous.
Urban does not believe all pit bulls are dangerous.
“It’s how they were raised and what they were exposed to,” she said.
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