By Donna Hales
An 11-month-old attacked before 8 p.m. Wednesday by a 50-pound pit bulldog suffered head injuries and was back at home Thursday.
Leesa Isabella Gray was treated and released from Muskogee Regional Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The baby was sitting next to the bed in her home at 820 Rutherford St., when the family pet attacked her, the child’s mother, Sandy J. Mitchell, told police.
The mother told police she ran toward the dog and it ran away. Animal Control took possession of the pit bull and it was euthanized Thursday morning, said City Clerk Pam Bush.
A man who lives next door to Mitchell, Kevin Shaw, said he breeds pit bulls. One was chained behind Mitchell’s house Thursday, and three were chained to their dog houses behind Shaw’s residence.
“I think that dog (that bit the baby) was kind of moody,” Shaw said. “I don’t know what may have triggered him. It pretty well shook everybody that a dog would attack a baby he had been around 11 months.”
Shaw said it was a sickening feeling.
He said the baby’s head was bloody after the attack. He said he spoke to his neighbors but they didn’t socialize. He said the mother tried to stay calm.
“She wasn’t frantic — she knew what to do,” Shaw said.
He said the dog that attacked the baby had never tried to bite him, “but he’s a pretty protective house dog.”
He said the dog didn’t react well to strangers.
“He let you know, ‘Don’t come here — keep on moving.’”
Shaw said he believes pit bulls get a bad rap, but that once they’ve attacked someone, they’ve got to go.
“If they’ll attack one — they’ll attack another,” he said.
A police report stated the dog’s rabies vaccination were not current. A veterinarian told police it had been approximately two years since the dog had been vaccinated.
A woman who has lived behind the baby’s home for the last 60 years, Novella Gaston, 86, said the pit bulls in the neighborhood arrived about a year ago.
Her son was home from Eufaula and told his mother to call the police because there were a lot of them all at once.
Several had to be taken away so no more than three would be at a residence, she said.
The dogs have no pens but are on chains.
Gaston has a fence around her property, and said she is not too afraid to go into her yard. But she won’t walk in the neighborhood.
“I don’t walk since the dogs have been over there,” she said. “I couldn’t fight a dog if one attacked me. I’m recovering from back surgery.
“I hear the dogs barking out there.”
No one answered the door at the Mitchell home Thursday.
