New York: Pit bull attacks elderly man's dog. Police refuse to do anything even though New York has a dangerous dog law

NEW YORK --  It was 10 seconds of terror for a New Springville resident Sunday morning as the 71-year-old watched helplessly while his beloved dog was mauled by a pit bull.

"I was walking my dog, not far from my home," Arnold Roth said Monday as he recounted the incident involving his six-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Kasey.

Roth said he was near the corner of Merrymount and Shiloh streets around 9:30 a.m. when "I heard a dog barking and I saw a young lady who looked like a teenager with two dogs; one was a pit bull."

Roth said the young woman was across the street from him when one of her dogs broke free and darted toward him. "Before I knew it, the pit bull was all over my dog," he said.

The woman -- who was still holding onto her other dog's leash -- walked across the street and grabbed the pit bull by its leash, but the damage had been done.

"It was a crazy scene," Roth said.

"The whole thing lasted 10 seconds," he said, but Kasey was seriously injured.

"At first, I didn't see anything," Roth said of the injuries. When he returned home, he noticed that Kasey "was very sensitive in a couple areas when I was calming him," he said.

Roth immediately took Kasey to a veterinarian who recommended he go see a specialist. There, the dog required X-rays and underwent emergency surgery for punctures near its lungs.

The incident left Roth with medical expenses totaling almost $2,000.

The veterinarian who performed the procedure wasn't able to be reached for comment Monday, but an invoice from the hospital showed that Kasey underwent laceration surgery.

Roth said that he didn't know the young woman, and that he only began seeing her walking the dogs in the neighborhood a few weeks ago.

"It's disgusting that people would buy a dog like that and have someone not much older than a child walk this dog," he said. "I told the young lady that if I saw her on the block with that dog, I would call the police."

Because Kasey is considered Roth's property, police told him that he could not file a report about the incident. Instead, he would have to find and sue the dog's owner in civil court -- a measure he said he does not plan to take at the moment.

But he said he wants to warn others in his neighborhood about the attack.

"I think my neighbors should be aware and take notice," he said.

"It was pretty sad, the whole thing."

(SILive - December 4, 2017)

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