Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 6, 1991 TAG: 9102060182
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The neighbor said he was not responsible because the dog was tied and the girl and her brother had been told to stay away.
Victoria Scott had crossed from her own yard on Newbern Road onto the property of Terry and Gail Doyle about 4 p.m. Monday where she was bitten by a 12-year-old mixed collie named Jo-Jo.
Her mother, Monica Scott, said the little girl and her 6-year-old brother, Brandon, were playing after school with one of the two Doyle children and got too close to the dog.
The girl was treated at the emergency room at Radford Community Hospital and had layers of skin on her face, shoulder and arm stitched over the injuries.
"That's causing some real discomfort," her mother said.
"The dog was tied up where he was supposed to be . . . so there was no negligence whatsoever," Terry Doyle said Tuesday afternoon. "Her and her brother both have been told not to go into that area, not because of the dog . . . but because there's other things I don't want them messing with."
The dog has been ordered to be quarantined for 10 days to make sure it is not rabid or otherwise ill.
"The dog has never bit anybody before," Doyle said. "He would have to be hurt to bite somebody . . . It's a sad situation and I hate it for the little girl, but they have been told to stay away."
Doyle said he was attending classes at New River Community College at the time the incident occurred.
"I probably know less about it than you do," he told a reporter.
This was not the first time the dog had led to problems between the neighbors. Monica Scott said it killed their cat about 1 1/2 years ago, leading to a court order to keep it tied on the Doyle property.
The cat had been trying to get in the door at the Scott house when it was attacked and fatally injured, she said.
She said the dog also had blocked her from going in her own door at times before it was kept tied by lying in front of it.
"I'm not going to push this dog, knowing its history," Scott said.
Doyle said the dog belonged to his wife's two sons.
"I'd have gotten rid of the dog years ago if the kids didn't love him so much," he said. "Other than me telling them to go feed the dog, that's about as much interest as I take."
by CNB