BILLINGS — A Billings man says he's hoping his story of a vicious dog attack in October will make owners take more responsibility for their pets in town.
Will Hyatt, who was outside skateboarding alongside his dog, Dixie, encountered a pit bull that bit Hyatt’s finger and Dixie’s ear and body.
See video of Hyatt running from an attacker dog:
“This dog ends up lunging at Dixie and grabs her by the neck and is thrashing her,” said Hyatt.
“I'm hitting the dog trying to try to get it off Dixie. It's not letting go,” he added.
He and Dixie ran the half mile to his home, where the pit bull followed them.
“The dog’s pounding on my screen door and all to where I end up running into my house, grabbing my firearm and I ended up having to shoot the dog in my yard, which was a pretty horrible experience,” said Hyatt.
The experience resulted in expensive hospital visits for Hyatt and Dixie, made more stressful when Hyatt found out the pit bull was unregistered.
“Had I not been on my parents’ insurance, I would have been 2K in debt due to the nature of my medical bills and Dixie's emergency vet visit,” he added.
Billings police are still investigating the attack.
According to Billings Animal Control, Hyatt’s story is one of 448 animal bite cases reported in the area.
Stacie Pannell, communicable disease program manager at RiverStone Health, said Wednesday that animal bite cases are unusually high this season amid the warm winter weather.
“We saw it continue into the winter. Whereas years past, before that, we weren't seeing that go into the winter. We'd be like, ‘Okay, we can do something else now. This is slowed down.’ But that hasn't happened last year or this year,” said Pannell.
RiverStone Health arranges treatment for bites from animals ranging from bats to domesticated animals.
“The animal that we see most of the interactions where somebody gets bitten or scratched and they don't know what to do, it's usually a stray feral cat,” said Pannell.
She recommends that victims of animal bites secure the animal if possible, so medical providers can prescribe the best treatment.
“Our job is to try to find out if the animal that they were exposed to could potentially have rabies. And there are some different ways we do that. An animal can be vaccinated against rabies, but that doesn't mean that they weren't carrying rabies, and that the person wasn't exposed. A lot of people think if they were bitten by a dog that was vaccinated, they're good… but that's not true,” she said.
