Colorado: Pit bulls tolerated their owner's elderly mother until she tried to stop them from fighting with each other. Then they tried to kill her.

COLORADO -- An air ambulance was required to transport an elderly Pueblo woman who was mauled by dogs Thursday.

Officers responded to an frantic phone call coming from the 1700 block of Euclid Avenue in Pueblo on Saturday evening. The caller reported two dogs attacking her 76-year-old mother.

The first officer to arrive on scene was met by several neighbors who flagged him down and directed him to the back yard of the victim’s home.

As the officer approached the back yard, the elderly victim was lying on the ground with her head, face and neck covered in blood.

Two big dogs, later identified by Pueblo Animal Law Enforcement to be pit bull type dogs, tried to attack the responding officer.

The officer was forced to shoot and kill one of the dogs while the other was able to be forced into a kennel. The woman could only be tended to after the dogs were contained.

The elderly victim was attempting to break up a fight between the family member’s dogs in the back yard of her home when the dogs turned on her and began the attack.

The woman was taken by ambulance to a local hospital and then transported via CareConnect to a Denver area hospital with severe injuries to her eye, face, hands and torso, including an amputated thumb and a fractured jaw.

Animal Law Enforcement took both dogs to Pueblo Animal Services, where the second dog was surrendered by the owner for euthanasia.

Neither dog was current on a rabies vaccination. Specimens for both dogs are being transferred to the Pueblo County Health Department for rabies testing.

Animal Law Enforcement is continuing to investigate and will determine whether charges will be filed against the dogs’ owner. The victim’s current condition has not been released.

(Fox31 - June 9, 2017)