Your Neighbor Was Attacked

It was a nice summer afternoon and I got home early from work. As I reached for the front door knob I heard some strange sounds. I went in the door, kicked off my shoes, but something didn’t sound right. I went back outside and I listened closer to the strange combination of sounds. There was a dog barking, maybe two…a lady yelling…and another lady screaming frantically. I ran in the house, got my shoes, my phone, ran back out, grabbed a rake, a long sharp stick, and ran like crazy toward the neighbor’s back yard where the sounds came from. Tracy, my neighbor, was running in the side door of her house. She was frantic, she was bitten several times, and she was bleeding. She seemed like she was scared crazy and yet strangely composed at the same time. She said: “the dog wouldn’t stop biting…wouldn’t let go…wouldn’t let go. ”She was calling her friend on her cell phone; I was calling 911. The Parma rescue squad was there in no time flat, but the paramedics couldn’t come in the yard until the police came…that was because I told the operator that my neighbor was bitten by a pit bull. The severity of Tracy’s wounds kept her in the hospital for a week and in bandages for longer than that. Her parents went through their own grief as they came from out of town to attend to their daughter’s needs. Tracy moved away 5 months later because the nightmares of what happened in her back yard wouldn’t stop. The last time I spoke to her she loved her new job in Oregon. 

I’ve never trusted dogs—I had a paper route when I was young. Also my daughter was bitten on her face when she was 5 years old by my good friend’s otherwise good dog. Another friend’s pit bull attacked and killed an innocent dog being walked down the street by its owner. My barber told me a story about someone who died from a pit bull attack. Serious dog attacks are nothing new—insurance companies won’t cover any dangerous dog for liability. The State of Ohio also has dangerous dog laws. If you Google ‘pit bull attacks’ you’ll find many stories and statistics about this rarely reported danger.  

These dog owners are always so shocked that their dog could do such a thing; they thought they had control of their pet. I never talked to the other neighbor that owned the dog that bit my neighbor, but I’m sure that she must have had some huge regrets that it happened because she knew Tracy. So this is a lose-lose-lose-lose   situation; Tracy and the owner both came out of this feeling horrible, the dog was destroyed, and I still feel angry that something like this could happen. I’m angry that there were no warnings and no signs that said: BEWARE DANGEROUS DOG. I never knew that there was a dangerous dog in my neighbor’s back yard. 

You can prevent this from happening on your street. Report any pit bull that you know about. And until there is a better way to deal with this problem--please vote to keep Parma’s pit bull ban (vote NO to repeal this existing ban) on Tuesday May 7. Why should you vote or care? Because your neighbor was attacked and apathy allows bad things to continue. God bless this vote.