LORAIN, Ohio — Police are looking for the owners of a pair of dogs they say terrorized a south Lorain neighborhood, attacking a 4-year-old boy and killing another family’s dog.
The attacks were reported on Aug. 21 on Palm Ave. near Packard Dr. on the city’s southeast side.
“It just could’ve been so much worse. He could’ve been scarred for life or dead,” Joyce Martin said of her grandson. “But he looks like he’s healing up pretty good.”
Martin explained she saw the two large dogs on her front porch that afternoon. She said she went to warn her grandson and his teenage sister, who were waiting in the driveway for the family to leave for a school event.
When she got to the side door, she said a neighbor was already kicking the dogs off the 4-year-old as they were biting his face and head.
“He was screaming. I’m sure his sister - she was panicked,” Martin said. “When I’d first seen him, I thought it was bad because of the blood. I was like, ‘Oh God.’ Then the police came and the ambulance came and took him to the hospital.”
Police said after that attack, the dogs ran up the street and eventually into another neighbor’s fenced-in backyard, where they attacked that family’s dog. The pet died from its injuries.
“Ultimately, the dogs were determined to be vicious. They weren’t able to handle the dogs and they had to put them down on scene,” said Lorain Police Capt. Jacob Morris, explaining the officers had to shoot the animals after cornering them.
Investigators are now looking for the dogs’ owners.
“I don’t think it was the dogs. I think it was the dogs’ owners and they’re not stepping up to be responsible,” said neighbor Daniel Smith.
He and his wife, Joy, told News 5 their dog Rocky had also been attacked by the same pair of dogs two weeks earlier.
“They had him pinned in the corner, grabbing at his head and his neck and I had to kick them to get them out of here,” said Daniel, explaining the dogs attacked the 14-year-old shitzu mix on the family’s front porch.
Joy said she picked Rocky up and brought him inside while her husband shooed the other dogs.
“He couldn’t walk for a week,” she said. “They got his front [leg] and he had a bite behind his ear.”
The couple said they saw someone in a car pick up the dogs and leave before police arrived to take a report.
Martin believes the person should have taken responsibility after that attack.
“If he knew that they were capable of getting loose or somebody at their house was letting them loose, he should’ve taken care of the problem,” she said.
She said she blames the owners more than the dogs themselves for the attacks.
“It’s pitiful they had to be put down because of an irresponsible owner,” she said.
Police said the owners could face criminal citations, including failure to confine dogs and failure to vaccinate for rabies. Morris explained they’d likely also be liable for stiffer penalties in civil court.
“These dogs were loose. These dogs were walking around, running around and running into people’s yards, charging children and other animals. And I think that is even more responsibility as an owner to say, ‘Hey I have to keep my dog confined.’ That’s not just the law, that’s the right thing to do,” he said.
Investigators encourage anyone with information about the dogs’ owners to reach out to the Lorain Police Department.
