My dog was attacked by another dog

by Therese on January 8, 2008

in Dogs, My pets, Pets, Rants

As I’m sitting here typing, my dog Lydia is lying next to me sleeping peacefully here on the couch. She’s perfectly fine now, and hopefully having some pleasant dreams as her feet twitch every few seconds. A few weeks ago though, we were nursing some aches and pains from a dog attack.

We went out for a walk, on the route we’ve walked for years. She was on a leash, walking quietly, minding her own business, when all of a sudden a dog lunged on top of her. Neither of us saw it coming. There was no warning whatsoever – no growling, no barking – absolutely no warning at all! As it attacked, there was just a flurry of dog, and a lot of yelping and growling mostly by Lydia. It was nearly impossible to know what to do and left me feeling so absolutely useless. There was no way I was going to reach down and try to pull them apart so I just yelled for help and tried to pull Lydia back. It was useless though because the dog had a pretty good hold on her. Eventually someone came and pulled the dog off of Lydia and I was able to check her neck to see if she was bleeding. There wasn’t, thankfully.

The dog owner, who saw the attack, is an idiot. He didn’t check to see if my dogs or I were ok. Nor did he apologize. And, after taking Lydia to the vet, the guy wasn’t interested in paying the bill. After talking to a couple of the neighbors though, none of this is surprising. The guy has had a few complaints to animal control because of the dog getting out and doing the same thing. Animal control won’t do anything though since there was no permanent damage to either one of us.

The way the current vicious dog ordinance in Austin is written, this type of dog is not considered vicious, and therefore all animal control can do is to give the owner a little ‘dog owner responsibility’ speech. In other words – nothing. There’s a new vicious dog ordinance being worked on though, which I’ve posted about before. Many people, including me, are unhappy with some of the language in it because it makes the ordinance too vague. Once the ordinance is finished though, hopefully animal control will be able to take some type of action when something like this happens.

The good thing is that Lydia is feeling a lot better now. She was limping for a few days, and had some scratches and small puncture wounds on her neck, but she’s going to be OK.

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{ 53 comments… read them below or add one }

Jennifer January 7, 2010 at 4:54 am

My poor little chihuahua was killed by next door neighbor’s St. Bernard last week. My little Rambo somehow got underneath our backyard fence and wondered into my neighbor’s yard. Rambo always barks in the backyard as he feels tough there, but he would never hurt a fly. It’s such a tragedy. The St. Bernard’s owner is paying for the funeral expenses but this doesn’t bring back Rambo. The vet reported it to animal control, but they say that because my dog got into his yard, they can’t do anything. My arguement is just because a dog wanders into your backyard, does that give another dog the right to kill it? At one point we had a doberman in our household, and she never hurt Rambo. This same St. Bernard attacked our black lab while we were walking him outside, 2 years ago. I just don’t understand why people own aggressive dogs. Anyone with a toy dog be extra careful!! They are so little and helpless. I hope my pain will ease in time :(

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epiphany January 22, 2010 at 7:36 am

the same thing happened to my dog, she got under to there yard and the dog ripped hermione(my dog) to shreds, we tried to get her help but it didn’t help, we baryed her in the back yard. but the nabbers dont even say sorry that there dog killed mine, i know how you feel, and its so hard. i got my dog in 5th grade, and she was only 8….

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Iris January 27, 2010 at 3:59 am

I’d have your dog checked by a vet because joint damage( limping) may have serious complications

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