"I'll never forget that sight": Woman recounts dog attack that killed her 90-year-old mother

VIRGINIA BEACH

A rescue group delivered the tan-and-white American pit bull terrier named Blue around noon on Wednesday.

The year-old dog seemed to bond quickly with everyone in the house in Pembroke Manor, including the two other dogs that lived there, said the woman who adopted him.

Linda, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be published, was immediately smitten.

So was her 90-year-old mother, a lifelong animal lover with whom she lived.

“She thought he was cute,” Linda said. “As soon as he got here, he ran right up to her and she gave him a biscuit.”

But later that evening, as Linda’s mother struggled to get up from a fall, the dog attacked her.

By the next morning, she was dead.

It was the first fatal dog attack that Virginia Beach Animal Control has ever investigated, said Supervisor Rebecca Franklin.

The dog was quarantined, as the state Health Department requires. It will be observed for the next 10 days to check for rabies, and then the department will decide its fate, Franklin said.

“We’re still actively investigating and trying to piece everything together,” she said.

Linda believes it should be euthanized.

“I told them they didn’t have to wait 10 days,” she said.

Linda spoke to The Pilot on Thursday and asked that her mother’s name not be published and that she be identified only by her first name.

Linda said she adopted Blue from Forever Home Rescue and Rehabilitation Center on Broad Street in Virginia Beach after paying a $20 adoption fee.

“We send out our deepest condolences,” read a statement from the nonprofit that said the dog had never shown aggression. “We do not know what events transpired in the moments before this tragedy occurred with Blue’s owners’ mother, and none of us could have ever predicted this horrible event. We are devastated for the … family and our thoughts and prayers go out to them.”

Linda said she wanted to get a dog because she hadn’t had one in years. Her mother owns a 12-year-old feist terrier named Jack, and her daughter also has a dog.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to rescue a dog and give a home to one that really needs one,’ ” she said. “I thought I could give him a good life.”

She was told that Blue, who weighed about 50 pounds, was gentle with older children and other dogs.

Linda said she was in the backyard with the dog when she noticed that shock and canvas collars seemed to be tight so she took off both.

It was around that time that she noticed that her mother – who was diligent about keeping the doors bolted – had locked her out.

Linda knocked and called out to her mother, but the woman had fallen in her room and couldn’t get up.

Linda said she grabbed a hammer and broke a window pane to get in.

She was walking into her mother’s room when Blue ran behind her mother and playfully put his paws around the woman’s shoulders as she struggled to get to her knees.

Linda said her mother seemed irritated by the dog’s actions and yelled at it.

“She said, ‘Get the heck off of me,’ or something like that. I think it riled the dog up.”

Soon the dog was biting her mother’s arms, abdomen and thighs. Linda tried to pull Blue off to no avail. She even swung the hammer that she had used to break the window and tried zapping him with the shock collar, but he would not stop. The dog turned on her, biting her in the upper arm, leaving teeth marks and a large wraparound bruise.

The whole time her mother pleaded with her to get him off.

Eventually she was able to free her mother and call 911.

“I’ve had animals all my life and I have never seen an animal act like that. It was horrible,” Linda said. “I’ll never forget that sight.”  Source: pilotonline.com