Dog rescued from 'death row' shelter attacks family that day

[ttt]

....and has to be euthanized  

www.nydailynews.com/news/national/pit-bull-attacks-ny-teen-rescued-shelter-article-1.2352340

A pit bull mix rescued from a Manhattan kill shelter attacked a teen girl within seconds of stepping foot in its new Long Island home Sunday and was later put down, officials and scarred family members said.

The 2-year-old dog named Alex was saved by animal lover Stephen Neira, of Patchogue, just 22 minutes before he was set to walk down "death row" at Animal Care Centers of New York City.

But the brown-and-white canine's happy homecoming turned bloody when it lunged at Neira's three young children, chomping down on his oldest daughter's face, throat and arm.

"They're absolutely traumatized," Neira's father Frank Neira told the Daily News. "They won't even sleep by themselves since it happened. There was blood everywhere — on their deck, inside the house."

The 16-year-old victim, Briana, needed between 60 and 80 stitches on her arm after she lifted it to shield her throat, her grandfather said. She also underwent plastic surgery on her mauled lip at Stony Brook University after getting 20 stitches.

"People need to be way more aware about abusing dogs and how utterly disgusting it is bc then they hurt people and there just animals as well," she tweeted Monday. "I just want to go home and pretend this never happened."

Briana was in a lot of pain and still recovering at the hospital Tuesday and refuses to speak to family members about the incident, Frank Neira, 60, said.

She and her 12-year-old sister Madison and 10-year-old brother Jake were anxiously waiting to greet their new pet when he entered from the back door and immediately lunged, unprovoked.

"The three of them were standing together waiting to be introduced to the dog," their grandfather said. "They were all looking forward to it. The second they opened the door, he jumped. They didn't even get a chance to meet him."

Stephen Neira, 40, sprang into action and tried subduing the dog with a chokehold, but the 43-pound animal never loosened his grip.

A neighbor who heard the commotion ran over to help. It took three tranquilizer darts from responding authorities to slow the dog down, the family said.

Alex was euthanized hours after the attack at the Brookhaven animal shelter after officials deemed the dog "violent," said Jack Krieger, spokesman for the town of Brookhaven.

"When people ask for dogs to be put down, they put it down," he said. 
The dog had passed behavioral tests and was deemed "sociable," though he often pulled hard on his leashes, the shelter said on its website.

The behavior department feels that he can go to an average home," it wrote.

Animal Care Centers of New York City said in a statement officials were "deeply saddened" by the incident.

“As with any animal that comes into our shelter, Alex was behavior tested using the ASPCA SAFER methodology. This testing helps us determine suitability into different placement environments and is used by shelters across the nation," shelter spokeswoman Katy Hansen said. "Unfortunately, it is difficult to predict how animals react to every stimuli they may encounter."

The horrifying ordeal has left the Neira family shaken and confused.

Stephen Neira, who was at his daughter's hospital bedside Tuesday, is "terrified by what could have happened," his dad said. He took in the dog to give it a second chance at life.

"What happened was bad enough, but what could have happened is even worse," Frank Neira said. "What I can't figure out is how the people at the shelter could not pick up that this was not a suitable dog to be around kids. A dog that has been brutalized by a previous owner is not a dog that should be around a family. That's for sure."

"It's unfortunate and very upsetting," he added. "I'm just grateful that things weren't worse."

[Elsa]

Holy shit. That poor kid had around 100 stitches? OMG.

[iammalcolmx]

Damn

[msmerymac]

Sept 9, 2015 12:47:37 GMT -5 ttt said:

The 2-year-old dog named Alex was saved by animal lover Stephen Neira, of Patchogue, just 22 minutes before he was set to walk down "death row" at Animal Care Centers of New York City.



The dog had passed behavioral tests and was deemed "sociable," though he often pulled hard on his leashes, the shelter said on its website.

The behavior department feels that he can go to an average home," it wrote.

Animal Care Centers of New York City said in a statement officials were "deeply saddened" by the incident.

“As with any animal that comes into our shelter, Alex was behavior tested using the ASPCA SAFER methodology. This testing helps us determine suitability into different placement environments and is used by shelters across the nation," shelter spokeswoman Katy Hansen said. "Unfortunately, it is difficult to predict how animals react to every stimuli they may encounter."

The horrifying ordeal has left the Neira family shaken and confused.

Stephen Neira, who was at his daughter's hospital bedside Tuesday, is "terrified by what could have happened," his dad said. He took in the dog to give it a second chance at life.

"What happened was bad enough, but what could have happened is even worse," Frank Neira said. "What I can't figure out is how the people at the shelter could not pick up that this was not a suitable dog to be around kids. A dog that has been brutalized by a previous owner is not a dog that should be around a family. That's for sure."

"It's unfortunate and very upsetting," he added. "I'm just grateful that things weren't worse."

ACC Manhattan (all 5, actually) is pretty fucking awful. In a way, it's unavoidable. They are the main shelter for NYC, so they have an unbelievable volume of surrenders and strays. Almost necessarily, they are a very high kill shelter. 

On the other hand... they are a high volume, high kill shelter. When you don't actually have the time to appropriate evaluate animals that come in, this is what happens. Although, to be honest, it probably happens the other way more often - animals are considered to be unadoptable because they are scared and stressed in the high volume shelter, and then they are euthanized - or they get sick or stop eating in the shelter, and then they are euthanized. 

My black persian was minutes away from being surrendered to ACC Manhattan when he was discovered by a woman who does rescue and she literally took him from the waiting room. He gets really stressed in institutionalized environments.

I also have an issue with ACC because of some of their turnover policies when it comes to rescues and how many hoops a rescue needs to jump through just to be approved to pull animals. But this is apparently not true with private adopters. 

[MrsAxilla]

Wow. That's awful.

[elleblue]

[pixy0stix]

How truly awful for everyone involved.

I hate when they say the animal was unprovoked, though. Dogs very very rarely attack without a stimulus. I would bet the dog was spooked to walk through a door and suddenly see 3 people standing there, all attention on it.

[eponinepontmercy]

Sept 9, 2015 13:42:49 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

How truly awful for everyone involved.

I hate when they say the animal was unprovoked, though. Dogs very very rarely attack without a stimulus. I would bet the dog was spooked to walk through a door and suddenly see 3 people standing there, all attention on it.

I also think using the phrase "young children" when the kid attacked was 16 is a little strange.

[msmerymac]

Sept 9, 2015 13:42:49 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

How truly awful for everyone involved.

I hate when they say the animal was unprovoked, though. Dogs very very rarely attack without a stimulus. I would bet the dog was spooked to walk through a door and suddenly see 3 people standing there, all attention on it.

Could have also been abused by children. Or women. Or there was another stimulus that just set him off. 

Which, again, is the downside of a high volume shelter. They really can't tell you if the dog is good with kids, men, women, other dogs, cats, etc unless they are verbally told this information via someone surrendering the animal, and even then, it's just word of mouth.

Not that I want to discourage people from adopting from shelters. Just bring your whole family to visit the animal prior to adoption.

[jeaniebueller]

Geez, those poor kids.

[cleosprite]

Wow, how awful. =( The shelter we got our dog from required every family member to meet the potential adoptee at the shelter, including other dogs, if we had any (which we didn't). I guess maybe that would help with something like this. How sad.

[isabel]

Was the dog not on a leash? I feel just awful for the girl. But I do have to wonder what happened exactly. The article makes it sound like he wasn't on a leash and he absolutely should have been.

[glinda]

Sept 9, 2015 13:42:49 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

How truly awful for everyone involved.

I hate when they say the animal was unprovoked, though. Dogs very very rarely attack without a stimulus. I would bet the dog was spooked to walk through a door and suddenly see 3 people standing there, all attention on it.

And he said the dog was sprinting around the yard then ran inside and slipped on the floor. plus a new environment and a stressed out dog. I also hate the "unprovoked" term because you're right, it happens so rarely.

[ksun]

I hate this. All the uneducated non-dog-people-pitbull-haters are going to jump all over this. Any kind of dog could have done this given the right situation.

[sydney02]

From years of doing rescue one thing I've found is dogs react differently with children than they do adults. Now these kids weren't real young but still. It could be a fast movement or a kid shrieking that could get a dog worked up. Especially a dog that doesn't know the family.
Plus it's not like most dogs in shelters, especially pit bulls came from loving families and good backgrounds.
It's really, really hard making the call that a dog is not adoptable. Our rescue worked with a rural southern shelter where a good 98% of dogs and cats were euthanized. But as much as we volunteers hated to stereotype breeds, there were just certain breeds that had to have absolutely stellar temperaments or they could not be put on the adoption floor.
Not only has this family probably been a little turned off to shelters, but stories like this get around quickly and make other people afraid to adopt. So in trying to save this one dog, many other dogs won't get adopted due to bad press.

And for the unprovoked issue. A pretty well respected trainer told me that a dog is always provoked for it to attack. It's just to them what is provoking is different than what we humans think it is. In the dog's mind, he had good reason to attack. It's important to know the triggers of an individual dog.

I had a dog who was a sheltie mixed with God knows what. Cutest fluffy thing. Let her hear a kid scream and that would set her off. We had to lock her in the bedroom when my cousins came over. Another dog I had hated fast movements by people she didn't know. We didn't know that until my uncle who she'd met a few times before and seemed to like, jumped up off the couch and clapped his hands watching a football game. She ran at him and bit his leg. Thankfully no blood or stitches. He was more like WTF? She had never done that before.

This family sounds like good people. And the girl's tweet is actually pretty mature. I hope they can emotionally heal from this and that poor girl doesn't have a permanent scar.

[Michelle]

Sept 9, 2015 17:14:25 GMT -5 ksun said:

I hate this. All the uneducated non-dog-people-pitbull-haters are going to jump all over this. Any kind of dog could have done this given the right situation.

My husband would.

He is terrified of pitbulls and about ripped me new one (verbally) when I let DD (8 yrs old) pet a pit at Petco the other day. We followed safe practices. I approached first, cautiously, hand palm-down so he could smell me. He was happy and wagging his tail and I cautiously petted his head. He was really good. she approached cautiously with me between them and first said hi to the dog. Tail wagging. extended her hand for it to smell, moving slowly and speaking softly. tail wagging, he lowered his head under her hand for some ear scratching.

My DH worked for a vet and saw a few incidents of pits grabbing hold and he is convinced that once they lock their jaw even they have a hard time letting it go, whereas (according to him) labs, which can bite just as easily (and which we own) will loosen their grip faster.

I feel for good pitties. They get a bad rap.

And I agree with the other poster who said the girl's statement was incredibly mature!

[MixedBerryJam]

Sept 9, 2015 13:42:49 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

How truly awful for everyone involved.

I hate when they say the animal was unprovoked, though. Dogs very very rarely attack without a stimulus. I would bet the dog was spooked to walk through a door and suddenly see 3 people standing there, all attention on it.

This, all the way. I was trying to figure out how to say that the kids probably spooked him without sounding like I was blaming the kids, which I'm not, but really, I'd be spooked if I was in that dog's shoes. Even if the kids were standing stone still, waiting to be introduced. 

[pixy0stix]

I'm surprised that someone who worked for a vet's office is stupid enough to perpetuate the 100% false lock jaw myth.

[oscarnerdjulief]

This reminds me of when we went to our local humane society to walk the dogs, which is one of our favorite hobbies on the weekends. This past April there was the cutest dalmatian-pit mix named Domino who sat so sweetly to be walked. We walked her without incident. It was a nice, easy walk. Unfortunately, a few weeks later we found out that she had gotten aggressive, I think at someone's home after being adopted, and had to be put down. I wish I had never found out about it. It still bothers me.