Dupo recovering from attack by Akita and German Shepherd

ILLINOIS -- A Dupo woman remains hospitalized with a broken hand and puncture wounds to her legs, thigh and back after she was attacked by two dogs Thursday.

Brenda Bowder, 55, was outside her home with her Bassett Hound Bubba and her Dachshund Dudley when an Akita and a German Shepherd guarding a vacant home nearby escaped the fenced yard they stay in and attacked Dudley.

“All of a sudden there was this white blur that came out of nowhere, and it was the biggest dog I’ve ever seen in my life,” Bowder said from her room at St. Anthony’s Medical Center in south St. Louis County Monday. Bowder said the Akita was as tall as her waist and likely weighed over 100 pounds.

“I couldn’t get him off (Dudley),” she said. “I was kicking him, I was punching him, I just couldn’t get him off of my baby.”

Then, the German Shepherd ran up and attacked Bowder from behind, sinking its teeth into her back just below her neck. When she fell, she fell on top of Dudley, protecting him from further injury.

“Both of them started biting me. The (German Shepherd) took a chunk out of my hip and then he went down to my leg. His bite goes all the way down to the bone, I could feel the bone,” she said.

Bowder said that while one neighbor rushed over to grab Dudley, others armed with sticks and mop handles arrived to beat the dogs until they retreated. The dogs bit Bowder 25 times. She said help from the neighbors and first responders came just in time.

“I would definitely have lost my leg and my arm if not my life,” Bowder said.

“These are plain old junkyard dogs, that’s all there is to it,” Bowder’s husband David Bowder said. “(EMS) said if it had been a child, it would have been dead.”

The dogs that attacked Bowder are in possession of St. Clair County Animal Services in a 10-day rabies quarantine. At the end of that period, they’ll be destroyed.

Dupo police have not yet said if they intend to seek charges against the owners of the dogs.

As for Dudley, he survived the attack but was badly hurt. He also was bitten several times and can’t eat solid food because his jaw was dislocated. “I just want to get home and see him. I miss him,” Brenda Bowder said.

(Belleville News Democrat - July 13, 2015)

Earlier:

• Dupo woman hospitalized after dog attack