Dog mauls girl, 2


Robbie Schwartz, The Walton Tribune
April 13, 2008

SOCIAL CIRCLE — Public safety officials are petitioning for the dog that attacked a 2-year-old girl Tuesday afternoon to be euthanized.

Social Circle Department of Public Safety officials were called out to a duplex on Laurel Street around 2:30 p.m. in reference to a dog biting a young child. When officers arrived, a woman was carrying a small, bleeding child in her hands who was reportedly attacked by a neighbor’s Rottweiler.

Emergency medical personnel stabilized the girl and transported her to Social Circle High School, where she was airlifted to Egleston Children’s Hospital because of severe lacerations to her head and body. The child later went into surgery because of puncture wounds of her skull.

Animal control quarantined the dog.

According to SCDPS officials, a small group of kids were playing in front of the home when the victim wandered from the front to the backyard, where the dog was chained up. Officials are not sure if the child slipped or made her way to the dog on her own accord, but the caretaker told officials she heard a loud scream, that of a child’s.

When she came around to the backyard, she saw the young child’s head inside the dog’s mouth. The caretaker called for her husband, who did what he could to get the dog to release the child. The caretaker managed to pull the child from the dog’s jowls, but the dog lunged again and bit the young girl on her leg and groin area, according to reports.

Capt. Ron Zara, who conducted the investigation of the incident, said initially they were deciding whether to charge the caretaker or the dog owner.

The dog owner, Wilbur Pittman, 47, of 348 Laurel Drive, initially told investigators the dog was not his, that he was taking care of the dog because it was left there when he moved in, according to reports.

Further investigation found three different persons who verified the dog was in fact Pittman’s and the dog wasn’t even chained up on his property but rather that of the victim’s family.

“We charged Mr. Pittman because it was his dog, he knew the dog had the capability to be vicious, it was chained up on his neighbor’s yard and it caused an unsafe environment for those kids,” Zara said.

Pittman was charged with reckless conduct.