The woman, who asked that WBTV not reveal her identity for safety reasons, said she just wanted to take her standard poodle, Diego, for a walk Saturday. She did not expect the horrifying situation that followed.
The woman said she was just a couple blocks away from her home in the Brandon Ridge neighborhood when the incident happened. She said two dogs loose in another yard charged at her and Diego. They were pit bulls.
“Both of them were on him. I just started screaming at the top of my lungs,” said the woman.
“I was trying to get that dog off of him and the two neighbors were also. What if that dog would have turned on us because we were trying to get it off so much? It would have been a whole different situation,” she said.
Once the neighbors eventually got Diego away from the pit bulls, they rushed him to an animal hospital. He has several flesh wounds and needed stitches for his bite injuries. Diego’s owner said the poodle appeared to be in shock and in pain for multiple days.
“He wouldn’t sit. He wouldn’t lay. He just stood there and I felt so helpless. I didn’t know what to do for him,” explained the woman.
She was surprised to learn no penalty would be coming for the pit bulls or their owner.
Officials with the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office said that because the incident was entirely dog-on-dog, North Carolina state law does not allow for criminal charges to be pressed against the dogs’ owner.
Officials said a civil claim could be made because the dogs were off of their leashes. The owners have not been cited yet and the dogs cannot be seized because a human was not attacked, according to officials.
“I don’t think anybody should have to go through this knowing that nothing can be done to these dogs because it was a dog-on-dog attack,” said Diego’s owner.
Officials told WBTV the incident is still under investigation.
(WNCN - March 29, 2017)