PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. – A Putnam County couple says they were trying to protect their dogs when a neighbor’s bulldog got loose and attacked them and their pets.
Nancy Buckner said she and her husband, John, saw the dog roaming outside their neighbor’s yard and sent a photo to the owners. She said the dog had attacked their animals through a fence about a year earlier.
Recommended Videos
The couple’s dogs were outside when the bulldog reached them, Buckner said.
“It ripped my dog’s face right open, and I thought it took his eye out,” she said.
Buckner said she and her 76-year-old husband tried to separate the dogs, but the bulldog grabbed both animals by the face.
“My husband had his hand in the dog’s mouth and was trying to break him free,” she said. “I grabbed the dog — it had a chain on its throat — and I was trying to lift him up.”
Buckner said the dog shook its body, knocking both her and her husband to the ground.
“It kept latching and latching,” she said. “I got scratched. Thank goodness I didn’t get bit. When my husband hit the ground, I thought my husband was dying.”
Buckner said she yelled for a neighbor to get a gun before going inside to call 911 and retrieve her own gun. She said the bulldog’s owner arrived and grabbed the dog before she returned outside.
Buckner said her husband was injured and both dogs were badly hurt. Brutus, their 17-year-old dog, was scheduled for surgery, she said.
She also accused the bulldog of killing chickens belonging to another neighbor and said this was the second time it attacked her dogs.
“They know it’s vicious,” Buckner said of the dog’s owners. “If that dog had gotten a hold of one of my grandchildren, then what?”
Putnam County Animal Control is investigating.
