Many dogs never bite. But, any dog can, regardless of breed.
That is what Dawn Hunt, of Minneapolis, realized after a scary encounter with a dog in Webber Park, along scenic Shingle Creek, last Thursday afternoon.
"I saw the dog, it saw me and charged me as hard and fast as it could, totally unprovoked," Hunt said.
Multiple deep gashes mark both of Hunt's legs, some deep enough to require stitches or staples.
"I just kept getting bit and bit and bit, and I was left bleeding," she said.
She got mauled, then she got mad.
"I mean, it was so fast and it was hard core."
Hunt described the dog as a Jack Russell mix, white in color with tan spots. She said it was wandering on it own with a leash attached to its collar, dragging it on the ground. Hunt said it didn't growl or bark before pouncing on her and leaving gaping wounds, teeth marks and punctures.
"This one on my left thigh, it got ahold of me and started shaking back and forth," Hunt said.
She said she struggled to stay standing and did whatever she could to pry the dog's teeth off of her, kicking and hitting it with a water bottle.
In the meantime, Hunt maintains the dog owner, a woman she didn't know, stood nearby before retrieving the leash and taking off with the dog.
"I was screaming for her stop, tell me who you are, where are you going, you can't leave me, it's a crime to leave a person like this," said Hunt.
But, the stranger kept walking toward the woods before briefly stopping and turning around to say, "my dog doesn't bite," Hunt said.
Hunt was left alone, bleeding profusely on the walking path and in a lot of pain. She said the stranger didn't apologize, which hurt as much as the multiple injuries.
"I just kind of would like to know why."
Hunt said she's aware of two other people and two dogs who claim they were also injured by a dog matching the same description in the same area. She chose to speak out Sunday with the goal of jogging someone's memory of who the woman and her dog might be.
Minneapolis Park Police along with Animal Care and Control are investigating. In Minnesota, pets are personal property and owners are liable for their dog's actions.
The city of Minneapolis keeps a map online of the dogs deemed dangerous, their owner's name and address, and about 25 dogs are currently listed.
If anyone recognizes the woman and dog in the crime alert poster, you are urged to call police.
For a map of dangerous dogs in Minneapolis curated by Minneapolis Animal Control & Care, visit their website here.
Story re-posted from Eyewitness News ABC 5. Written by Beth McDonough
By ALYSSA MULLIGER, Herald-Journal of Spartanburg
WOODRUFF, S.C. (AP) — Kara West, a fifth-grader at Woodruff Elementary School, loves her family pets — a cat, two dogs, two birds and a hamster.
West, 11, recently joined classmates in the school's 4-H Pet Rescue Club to build wooden dog houses and stuff plastic cat shelters with straw with the help of the Hub City Animal Project.
"The shelters are so that animals can have warm places to live, because if people do, then animals deserve to, too," West said.
The welfare of outdoor pets during extreme weather has been a popular topic of discussion during the past several weeks in Spartanburg. Several residents have voiced concern to City Council, including one who started an online petition calling for firmer rules for pets kept outside in inclement weather. Council has formed a committee to make recommendations for improving parts of the city's animal ordinance.
To help people properly shelter their outdoor pets, Hub City Animal Project has worked with R.D. Anderson Applied Technology Center students and 4-H Pet Rescue Clubs at multiple Spartanburg County schools to cut and assemble dog houses and prepare cat shelters.
Hub City Animal Project was formed in early 2014 to inspire area animal welfare organizations to collaborate in order to help keep more pets with their owners and out of the shelter system.
"Our main focus with our partner agencies is to keep animals in the home and to decrease animal overpopulation," said Ingrid Norris, outreach director with the organization.
Hub City Animal Project works with the 4-H youth development division of the Clemson Cooperative Extension to sponsor pet rescue clubs at Woodruff, Mary H. Wright, Pauline-Glenn Springs and Beech Springs elementary schools.
"Every year we all do something to help animals, and this year we picked to do shelters," said 10-year-old Sadie Burnette, a fifth-grader at Woodruff Elementary.
Supplies for the service project were purchased by Hub City Animal Project and funded through the 4-H clubs' program fees.
After students at R.D. Anderson cut and pre-drilled the dog house pieces, students with the 4-H pet rescue clubs assembled them with screws and screwdrivers.
Jentzen Fortenberry, 11, a fifth-grader at Woodruff, said it was challenging putting the club's dog house together, but he had some prior experience with building other things.
"The dog house is for dogs that stay outside and when they get off their leash," he said. "Once we build it, we'll give it away and it'll go to a house."
The clubs are building five large dog houses, and R.D. Anderson is supplying materials for three more dog houses, Norris said. The clubs also are using straw to insulate 10 new community cat shelters.
Hub City Animal Project will paint the dog houses and deliver them along with the cat shelters to agency partners. The dog houses will be distributed to city and county residents identified by those partners.
The cat shelters will be given to caregivers of community cats. These caregivers regular feed roaming cats, given them shelter and trapping them so they can be spayed or neutered and released.
Norris said she had the idea for creating the shelters a few years ago.
"We thought it was a really good project for the clubs, and we're excited," she said. "There is a need, and people are seeing all these animals out there with inadequate shelter. We want to get the shelters out there before another cold snap hits."
Information from: Herald-Journal, http://www.goupstate.com/
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