A search is underway for the owner of two dogs that attacked a family pet near a Langley school, inflicting injuries that required emergency surgery.
Murrayville resident Breanne Robson and her two children, aged four and two, had gone with Len, their King Charles cavalier/bichon frise cross to the playground at Glenwood Elementary around noon on Sunday, Nov. 10, when two off-leash dogs attacked.
“One big one lunged at me and my dog,” Robson described.
“It just kept biting and biting and ripping. I screamed and screamed and screamed, for what seemed like forever while doing everything in my physical power to stop the dog. My kids never got hurt, thank goodness, but were screaming and crying in fear.”
Robson described the two dogs as two pitbull crosses.
Then, her husband, Daniel Allingham, arrived.
“My wife was covered in blood and urine from our dog,” he said. “She was in tears and in shock while the other dog owner blamed his dog for jumping out of the truck.”
As Allingham was attending to his family, the dog owner, a 5 ft. 8 in., 200-pound Caucasian man who appeared to be in his 60s, left after Robson told him to get the attacking dog.
“He took off because I told him to get away as he was making no attempt to leash his dog,” she said.
“I didn’t want the dog going after my kids next.”
Allingham asked some Good Samaritans, women who had come to his family’s aid, to get information from the dog owner, but the man didn’t stick around.
He drove off in a newer black GMC pickup, heading north on 208 Street. The family didn’t get the licence plate number, but said it appeared to be a special B.C. parks plate.
“As they [the Samaritans] went to speak to him they yelled ‘stop,’ and he rushed away,” Allingham recalled.
Len was rushed to the Willowbrook Animal Hospital for emergency surgery for multiple injuries, including torn muscles in his back.
His recovery will be a long one,” said Robson. “The vet bill is in the thousands."
Allingham added: “My wife is beside herself. She’s always been of the mindset that all dogs should be leashed especially at playgrounds. Our children have been traumatized [and] are afraid to look at our dog with his wounds after a lengthy surgery.”
Len will be six on the 23rd, Allingham told the Langley Advance Times.
“[He’s the] happiest guy ever, wonderful with kids or dogs,” Dad described. “Just wants to smile and play with everyone, or at least he did.”
Robson hopes to locate this individual "so that he can be held accountable for his dog’s actions so that this never happens again.
Sarah Jones, executive director of LAPS (Langley Animal Protection Society), said animal control officers are looking for the owner of the two dogs.
“We’ll probably be increasing patrols in that area and talking to more people,” Jones said.
“We have ways of being able to trace people,” Jones added.
“It’s amazing how community can come together, and just talking to people, eventually, sometimes you’ll find a name.”
In some cases, Jones said, owners of offending dogs have turned themselves in.
There have been other incidents this year in B.C. where owners of attacking dogs have attempted to evade responsibility.
In August of this year, an unleashed dog attacked and killed a Langley family's two-year-old poodle-maltese cross. The owner fled the scene. Vancouver police are reportedly still investigating.
In April of this year, in Victoria, the owner of an attacking dog avoided a $1,500 veterinary bill by providing what turned out to be an out-of-service phone number.
