A devastated owner reported that her small dog was brutally killed by two pit bulls.
Monica Reyes spoke with WABC, explaining that she and her daughter were walking their eight-year-old Lhasa Apso, Juju, when they left him briefly in the yard of their Throggs Neck home. In a shocking turn, one of the pit bulls snatched Juju and wouldn’t let go.
“I was trying to pull him out of the pit bull’s mouth while my daughter was in tears, making sure the other kids were safe,” Reyes recounted.
According to Reyes, the workers nearby managed to distract the attacking dog, which eventually dropped her dog’s lifeless body.
As the man and woman accompanying the pit bulls fled, Reyes remembered the man shouting, “Sorry, call 911.”
Juju had to be put down afterward, and Reyes is left with nothing but a small piece of his tail as a memory.
“Whose family or child could this happen to next?” Reyes lamented.
She questioned, “What needs to be done to keep these dogs off the streets?”
Although she filed a police report, Reyes noted that New York law categorizes dogs as property, meaning attacks fall under property crimes rather than criminal offenses.
This incident occurred shortly before two pit bulls were involved in another attack on a Chihuahua in the Upper West Side.
Last weekend, footage emerged showing the Chihuahua, Penny, being attacked while her owner appeared powerless to intervene.
Penny survived, but her owner, Lauren Kraus, has since called for legal changes to hold negligent dog owners accountable for attacks.
A new legislative proposal, now named after Penny, has been introduced by Jennifer Rajkumar in New York State. This law, “Penny’s Law,” aims to criminalize the handling of dangerous dogs during attacks and establishes consequences akin to hit-and-run scenarios for owners whose dogs cause harm.
“It’s alarming that people can flee after their dogs attack and injure others,” was Reyes’s closing thought.
