WATCH: Emotions are running high in Nanaimo where a violent dog attack on children has a community reeling. Several people calling for an all-out ban on pit bulls, since the two dogs involved were that breed.
Elizabeth Wuskyrnyk is worried about what a violent pit bull attack on neighbouring children has done to her community.
“On some of the comments on Facebook they’re wanting to ban pit bulls from the community,” said the Nanaimo mother.
“I’m not getting rid of my dog, so that means I’m gonna have to move.”
The father of the child who badly injured in Saturday’s attack in Nanaimo’s Cinnabar Valley says a breed ban is called for.
“People say I’ve got a great one and it’s around kids,” said the victim’s father Dave Skarbo.
“They’re time bombs just look at the numbers.”
Saturday morning’s attack left his 10-year-old daughter with severe injuries to her arm and her playmates shaken after two pit bulls that had escaped their nearby yard attacked them, only letting go when a neighbour wielding a baseball bat came to their rescue.
“It could have been a lot worse I mean cuz they’re biting right here,” Skarbo said referring to his daughter’s arm. “Her neck’s right here, her face is right here.”
RCMP responded and found the two dogs back home at their owner’s Barbara Andrews house. She said the pair named Bentley and Hunter escaped from her yard’s back gate and admits she’d been ticketed twice before for them being on the loose.
“I apologize for anybody they hurt,” Andrews told CHEK News Monday.
“But I mean I’m not getting any answers they just came and took my babies,” she added crying.
RCMP say Andrews dogs have now been euthanized. Nanaimo SPCA Manager Leon Davis says calls for a pit bull ban are not the answer to stop attacks like this happening again.
“We need a dangerous dog legislation that’s going to protect us from every potential dangerous dog and hold irresponsible owners to task not just focussing on one breed,” said Davis.
Davis says that would mean stiffer penalties and quicker interventions when problem dogs hit their radar.
Wuskyrnyk supports those measures.
“It’s not the breed,” she said.
Skye Ryan
