6-Year-Old Boy Injured, Bitten by Dog in Pennsylvania
In Pittsburgh, PA, a 6-year-old boy was bitten by a large Akita mix as he was walking home from school. The first-grade student was walking past a fenced-in area when the 1½-year-old Akita mix went underneath the fence and attacked the boy. The boy’s wounds required 10 stitches to repair but doctors expect the boy to recover completely from the attack.
The dog’s owner said the dog was on a chain leash at the time of the attack. The dog was handed over to Pittsburgh’s Bureau of Animal Care and Control and was euthanized following the incident. There are no charges expected to be filed in connection with this incident against the dog’s owner.
When a child is walking home by themselves or is playing outside on their own, they are easily susceptible to dog attacks. If an aggressive dog is nearby, the chances that the child could be attacked increase. This incident demonstrates that even if a dog is leashed and behind a fence, it may not always protect pedestrians walking down the sidewalks because the dog could still escape. Although it is rare for this to occur, a dog could potentially dig underneath the fence and get out or, if the dog is big enough, they could jump over the fence and attack an unsuspecting person.
The victim’s father argued that the dog’s leash was too long to prevent the dog from escaping from the yard. The location where the dog is leashed and the length of the dog’s leash are all factors that could contribute to a dog attack. If a dog’s leash is very long, it could allow them enough slack in the leash to attack a pedestrian walking down the sidewalk near their yard. Leashing dogs in the backyard of a home could add a barrier to prevent such attacks but it is not a guarantee that an attack will not occur. Even with non-aggressive dogs, it is still possible for them to get riled up for some reason and attack an unsuspecting person walking through the streets or on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, many victims of dog attacks are children younger than 10 years old who suffer serious bite wounds as a result of the attack.
