SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — A woman was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries after a dog attacked her at a Sherman Heights home Friday morning, according to a San Diego Police Department lieutenant at the scene.
SDPD says officers received a 911 call from a neighbor at around 11:25 a.m. about a pit bull attacking its owner at a home on 29th Street.
Edy Aliangan lives next door and tells ABC 10News she witnessed the attack herself.
"So this morning I heard a noise.. I heard an 'ahhh,'' she says. "I went to the side of the house -- that's when I saw the dog was viciously pulling on my neighbor's arms so I started to scream and yell, 'Stop, stop' to the dog."
Police had to go through Aliangan's yard because of how many dogs were there on the property. Before they arrived, Aliangan she was doing all she could to stop the dog from a safe distance.
"I was on the phone on with 9-1-1 and I just came over here to the side of the house and I started banging on my house,” she tells me. "It was very difficult to see what I saw it was horrific."
By the time officers arrived, the attack had stopped, but a pit bull was "aggressively circling" an injured elderly woman, according to SDPD Central Divison Lieutenant Geoffrey DeCesari.
Responding officers used a taser and pepper spray to get the dog away from her, and they managed to capture the dog when they entered the backyard after they corralled it into a corner.
The San Diego Humane Society says there were several dogs on the property, including four adult dogs and nine puppies that were caged; however, SDPD believes only one dog actually attacked the woman.
Paramedics took the woman to the UCSD Medical Center for treatment of her life-threatening injuries. SDHS was in the process of corralling the dogs and securing them in their vehicles when ABC 10News photojournalists arrived on the scene.
Meanwhile the longtime neighbor Aliangan
says this isn't the first time she’s noticed the aggression from the dogs next door.
“There has been multiple dogs at my neighbor's house and some of them have gotten out of their gate and have attacked people with with their owners -- just passing by as they're walking their dogs and they've been attacked.”
Back in December, ABC 10News covered another dog attack in Mira Mesa where the owner was fatally attacked by his own three dogs.
Experts like Dr. Annie Petersen say there are a lot of outside factors to consider including the litter of puppies in close proximity.
"There's that innate need to want to protect, and I think unfortunately, we saw a very extreme example of that."
But Dr. Petersen adds, the event is very extreme and unfortunate. But she says it could also be from the environment itself.
"If you're looking at not only a litter of puppies, but multiple dogs in the household. There may have been some interaction between other dogs, and rather than directing onto the dog, they were having an altercation on to may have redirected onto the owner. It really just depends on what was going on on the household at the time.”
Dr. Petersen emphasizes incidents like this aren't common and these actions aren't specific to only one breed.
"I think that it's just bearing in mind that really any animal and any breed could possibly respond the way this animal did in this particular situation."
SDPD says the dogs will be quarantined at the Humane Society for further investigation.
"The additional dogs will also be quarantined until they can determine which dog was actually the attacking dog, and they will be conducting [an investigation into] whether or not the dogs are dangerous or they can be released back to the owner," DeCesari says.
This is a developing story. ABC 10News has sent a reporter to the area to gather more information.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story originally stated there were five adult dogs and seven puppies on the property, referencing SDPD as the source for that information. The Humane Society later amended that number.
