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Seven people are recovering after being attacked by two dogs in Plano. Police say the incident began at the Park Springs Townhomes off Alma Drive Sunday at about 7:15 p.m. when the dogs escaped from a nearby townhome. After they attacked six people, including a 5-year-old girl, Plano police officers chased them to a nearby park where one officer was attacked. Another officer then shot and killed one of the dogs. The other dog returned home and was quarantined by Animal Control officers.The police officer who was attacked was taken to a local hospital with a minor leg injury. The other six victims have minor injuries. Police say the dogs, described as shepherd mixes, have been known to be aggressive in the past. It is unknown whether charges are pending for the dogs' owner at this time. Read the full article … [Read more...]

De'Trick Johnson, 36-years old, was killed by a pack of pit bulls belonging to John Chester Smith, the owner of C.J.'s Garage. Johnson had driven to the business to have his car serviced. When he exited his vehicle, seven pit bulls tore through the bottom of the garage's front gate and savagely attacked him. It is unknown how long Johnson was being mauled before the first 911 call came in, which lasted from 5 to 8 minutes, according to different media reports. He was pronounced dead on scene; the initial cause of death was listed as "massive trauma." Johnson's life partner, John Smith III, is the son of the dogs' owner. Smith said there were multiple victims of these dogs before Johnson's death. Family members had warned his father to "get rid of those dogs," Smith said. Eight months earlier, the pit bulls had escaped the property in the same way and attacked man who fled by climbing up a tree. On April 22, authorities charged John Chester Smith with felony manslaughter in connection … [Read more...]

BASTROP, Texas (KXAN) — A volunteer at the animal shelter in Bastrop was mauled by a dog she was trying to help. The woman was walking a pit bull when it started barking at another dog behind a fence. The volunteer reached in to try and get the dog moving again and that’s when it turned on her. Some of her fellow volunteers stepped in to restrain the dog but by then the woman had already suffered serious injuries. The county says they are looking over all of their shelter policies.”Things like rating the animals,” said Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape. “How dangerous might an animal be based on its background, why it’s at the animal shelter to begin with.” The dog underwent a rabies test after being put down. The woman is still recovering in a hospital. Read the Full Article … [Read more...]

It was like a scene from a gripping courtroom drama: The victim, bandaged and animated as he described how he was viciously attacked by the perpetrator; the perpetrator’s family, sitting in disbelief as grisly details came forth. Only this wasn’t a courtroom, not in the traditional sense. This hearing took place October 2014 at the Riverside County Department of Animal Services in San Jacinto, Calif. The victim was a longtime pool maintenance pro whose near-fatal run-in with the alleged perpetrator — a pit bull/Labrador mix — was a graphic reminder that man’s best friend isn’t always the pool man’s. Here, PSN recounts several real-life canine encounters gone horribly wrong. Consider them cautionary tales — then take to heart the advice from an expert who trains field workers to defend themselves against four-legged threats. Read the full article … [Read more...]

Springfield, MO -- Part of the problem surrounds the animal control department. It used to be where the calls for vicious animals come in from Greene County but not anymore. All the county's calls go straight to the sheriff's office when an animal attacks because of budget cuts. "It's been a little overwhelming," said Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott, "We had two calls just yesterday."  But because he's the sheriff and not an animal control officer, he says his deputies have no choice when it comes to a vicious animal. "We really are not capable of capturing an animal, the only thing we can do is kill one if it's being aggressive or cause an issue where it's actively biting someone," said Arnott. It's a job the sheriff's department has been voluntarily doing after the county cut funding for animal control. It's a job the sheriff calls a dis-service to the community. Full Article … [Read more...]

Detroit, MI -- The owners of a dozen dogs that attacked Steven Constantine on Oct 2 are not currently facing any criminal charges, but are being sued, based on a Friday filing by Mark Bernstein of the Sam Bernstein Law Firm. The lawsuit says the pack of nearly 12 dogs, some of them puppies according to Detroit police, attacked Constantine on the 4500 block of Pennsylvania and "began eating him alive." They're owned by Derrick and Elizabeth C. Felton, according to the lawsuit. When police arrived, they shot and killed one of the dogs, causing the remaining to flee into the nearby home from where they'd escaped. Police and animal control workers removed and euthanized the dogs, described as pit bulls. Constantine lay in the hospital in critical condition. He is recovering but had his left arm amputated, underwent multiple surgeries to his limbs and torso, and is without use of his right hand and foot, which suffered paralysis and may also be amputated, … [Read more...]

LANCASTER, Calif. (AP) — The morning walk that would be the last of Pamela Devitt's life was more than just a routine stroll. It was part of the retiree's effort to keep fit for her golden years with a young grandson.  The fitness regimen and the plan to move out of state with her husband to be closer to their son's family ended tragically when four pit bulls attacked, biting her more than 150 times. On Friday, the dogs' owner saw his future plans evaporate when he was sentenced in Los Angeles County Superior Court to 15 years to life in prison.  The rare second-degree murder conviction in a dog mauling had come because Alex Jackson repeatedly ignored complaints about his dogs from horseback riders, neighbors and a postman. Prosecutors said he was well aware of the danger they posed and did nothing about it.  Devitt, 63, hardly stood a chance when the dogs leaped over Jackson's fence and attacked her in May 2013, on the home stretch of her two-mile walk in the high desert town of … [Read more...]

SAGINAW, MI — A week after Saginaw water-meter reader Dave Delgado suffered his third career dogbite, he is back in action. "I'm not afraid of dogs," said Delgado, 49. "As far as do I worry about dogs now more than before? Yeah, I do. But I can't let it get to me. And I don't. That's the attitude I've got to have." Delgado observed the injury as he was walking away from reading a water meter at a home on South Fourth Street. "Something wasn't right," Delgado said. When he pulled up his pant leg to take a look, the Saginaw city employee looked down to see a bite mark on his thigh from a pit bull mixed-breed dog that had charged him while he was at the house on South Fourth, on Saginaw's East Side, Friday, Aug. 15. Delgado said he had seen the dog while approaching the home and asked the residents to put the animal away so he could approach. Eventually, he said, a man came out of the house to hold onto the dog.  "He had a problem trying to hold the dog," Delgado said. "Finally he got … [Read more...]

DETROIT — A pair of dogs attacked and mauled to death a man as he jogged down a quiet, dirt road in rural Michigan. Craig Sytsma, 46, of Livonia died of his injuries Wednesday night at a local hospital, police in Metamora Township said. "He was jogging, doing what everybody else does out there, running and riding bikes," said Metamora police Officer Sean Leathers, who was one of the first on the scene. Sytsma, a divorced father of three, was unconscious and undergoing CPR when Leathers arrived.Sytsma worked in nearby Oxford and had apparently decided to go for a jog after leaving work. The dogs were apparently running free on the road where the attack took place. Neighbors fired shots into the air to try to scare the dogs off the jogger. Afterward, the dogs retreated to their owner's home. The dogs are cane corsos, an Italian mastiff-type breed that the American Kennel Club says were property watchdogs that hunted wild boar in their native country. Their name derives from the Latin … [Read more...]

A 74-year-old man was severely mauled by two dogs belonging to his neighbor near Hawthorne on Friday morning. Roy McSweeney, of 259 Old Hawthorne Road in Putnam County, was rushed to Shands at the University of Florida for extensive surgery including an attempt to save one of his arms. The other arm had been completely ripped off by the dogs, said Putnam County Sheriff's Capt. Johnny Greenwood. "He was in his yard doing yard work when the dogs jumped over the fence and attacked him," Greenwood said, adding that the fence was thin wire. "An investigator said the surgery would take six to eight hours." Greenwood said McSweeney's right arm was ripped off by the dogs. His left arm was partially removed and his face was injured, Greenwood added. Full Article … [Read more...]