Young Girl Attacked By Pit Bull

Apr 21, 2007
Maya Nishikawa
wcco.com

(WCCO) A four year old is recovering after being attacked by a pit bull outside her home. It happened Friday night outside a duplex on the 3200 block of North Lyndale Avenue in Minneapolis.

Four-year-old Huyen Phan was walking around her duplex to knock on the neighbor's door when the dog bit her.

The 80 pound pit bull was on a chain, but was able to bite the girl on the head and upper arm. She had to have 13 staples put in her scalp.

The dog owner's brother threw himself on top of the girl to keep the dog from biting her again.

The girl's mother says it could have been worse. "It just hard to think that if nobody was out there that it could've been a total different story, I probably wouldn't be talking about her right now ... She's only four.

She's just little and dogs have a lot more power over a child," said Ngan Tran.

The little girl is home and doing very well. Her mother is thankful the injuries were not more severe.

The dog was seized by animal control and well be held for 10 days to see if it has rabies. It is not known if the girl will have to take rabies shots.

4-year-old injured in attack by pit bull
An 80-pound dog tethered to a fence attacked the girl, the third incident of its kind in Minneapolis in a month.

April 22, 2007 – 8:22 AM StarTribune.com

A 4-year-old girl needed 13 staples to her head after she was attacked by a pit bull Friday night outside a Minneapolis duplex where the girl lives, according to city officials.

Animal control officers who responded to the scene on the 3200 block of Lyndale Avenue N. seized the approximately 80-pound dog -- and an order to destroy the dog was expected to be issued Saturday, said Lori Olson, Minneapolis' deputy director of environmental safety and management.

The dog's owner, who Olson said is a friend of the girl's family and who did not willingly surrender the dog, has until Tuesday to contest the order.

The girl was treated at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale; her injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, Olson said.

According to a police report, the incident occurred about 9 p.m.

The girl had apparently been walking around the duplex and might have startled the pit bull when she came around the corner to the back of the building, Olson said. The dog apparently attacked while it was still tethered to a fence, Olson said.

Though there were no records of prior incidents involving the pit bull, Olson noted that the dog had never been registered with the city.

Friday's attack comes on the heels of a pair of severe dog attacks that occurred in Minneapolis in the past four weeks.

On March 26, Paula Ybarra, 37, nearly died after an American bulldog and a pit bull repeatedly bit her at her neighbor's Northeast home. On the morning of April 13, as 8-year-old DeVonta Prince and his older brothers were walking to school in south Minneapolis, DeVonta was mauled by an Akita that had escaped from a nearby yard.

Although the number of animal control calls pick up each year as the weather gets warmer, Olson said she "can't remember this many serious incidents in such a short time."

She was at a loss to give a possible reason for the rash of attacks, adding that the city has not seen any surge in its dog population.

"If this is any indication of what summer will bring, it's not good," she said.

Tom Ford • 612-673-4921 • tford@startribune.com