A senseless mauling

Sue wrote about the loss of her beloved papillon in a brutal, senseless pit bull attack. Attacks like this, where an innocent family pet is savagely mauled to death by one or more pit bulls, occur daily, but are almost never reported. This is her story: 

The house next to mine became a rental this fall. The chain link around the house was built in 1970 and has never been replaced. It has a lot of damage and is held together with BBQ grates. A family moved in with two pit bulls. I told the tenant that the fence was in bad condition and I was scared with my two sons and dogs in my yard. He said he was making improvements on the fence. And that one dog was aggressive and liked to dig out but he was working on it.

On November 12th, a month after they moved in, the Pit bulls jumped the fence and attacked my dog in my front yard in front of my four and nine year old sons. The dogs severed the spinal cord of my 13 year old nine pound papillon. He was unable to move or get away as they crushed his pelvis and punctured his colon exposing his internal organs to the outside. My son held the dog as we rushed him to the vet as my other son cried. I incurred a $800 vet bill before having to put him down.

Since the attack I found out the pits had been getting out while I was at work. They jumped the fence and attempted to attack a neighbor walking her lab. She let go of the leash and her dog managed to escape unharmed. The day after the attack on my dog, the same lab was being walked by another person past the pits. They jumped the fence and grabbed the lab by the throat and hind quarters. The owner came out and called the dogs in. The owner ignored the woman as she screamed her dog had been attacked. The wife of the pit owner came on the scene at that point and asked if the dogs had attacked again, and offered to pay. She claimed her husband was deaf and could not hear her screams.

Sue was left with a dead animal companion and a vet bill for hundreds of dollars. This is the everyday reality for animal lovers who suffer the loss of their pets in vicious attacks by "family pit bulls" The pit bull owners are not held accountable for their actions or the actions of the animals or which they are supposedly responsible. The bereaved virtually never receive any compensation for their loss, but are routinely harassed and threatened. This needs to change, and the sooner the better.