Saturday, March 29, 2014

Boomer child seriously injured by dogs

NORTH CAROLINA -- A young girl who was seriously injured by dogs while playing in her yard in Boomer late Wednesday afternoon is now at home recovering, said Wilkes Animal Control Director Junior Simmons.

Simmons said the child’s grandmother looked out a window and saw a female pit bull dog and its four five-month-old puppies attacking the child in the yard. He said the grandmother looked out the window because her dog, a Chihuahua, started barking from inside the house.

He said the woman rushed out to help her granddaughter and was bitten on an arm and a leg while trying to get the dogs away from the child. A man who is related to the child and the grandmother started hitting the dogs with a board to get them away, said Simmons.

The child was then taken to Wilkes Regional Medical Center, where Simmons said she was treated for bites and scratches over much of her body. He said the child has since been released from the hospital. Simmons said she is either 9 or 10 years old.

Simmons said the man who owns the five dogs that attacked the child lives across the street from where the incident occurred. He said the man voluntarily let animal control officers have the dogs. The dogs didn’t have current rabies vaccinations and were euthanized so they could be tested for rabies, he said, but the test results aren’t yet back.

The yard where the incident occurred is along Big Country Drive, which is off High Rock Road.

Simmons said he didn’t know what prompted the attack and that the Wilkes Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident. Simmons said animal control officers didn’t interview the child and that he didn’t know if anyone from the sheriff’s department has interviewed her for details about what happened.

Simmons said the mother dog appeared to be a full blooded pit bull and the puppies, weighing about 35 pounds each, appeared to be part pit bull

(Wilkes Journal-Patriot - March 29, 2014)

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