NEWTON TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WJW) — An Ohio woman says she felt that she had no choice but to take extraordinary measures to save her dog from certain death.
The unusual situation unfolded Monday morning when 52-year-old Jennifer Love let her two dogs out in the backyard of her home in Newton Township before going to work.
Just minutes later, she was terrified to discover that her 12-year-old Eskimo Pomeranian mix named Kevin was being mauled by a pit bull that broke loose from a tether she was tied to a couple of blocks away.
“I was thinking, ‘No, I’m not going to let this happen. You can’t kill my dog, not in front of me. I’m not going to let that happen,'” Love said.
Love said she tried to pry the pit bull’s grip loose and use her body to shield her dog from the attack, but it was to no avail.
“She just kept coming back and back and back, relentlessly,” she said.
After several minutes of trying to save her dog, she says she was exhausted, and then thought about what she learned in a self-defense class.
“You do whatever you can, you gouge them in the eyes, you bite them, whatever. The ear was close and I bit her in the ear as hard as I could,” she said. “It was live or die at that point. I was losing, I was losing and the dog was dying.”
She said a couple of her teeth were ripped out when she bit the dog’s ear, but it created enough of a distraction that enabled a neighbor to pull the pit bull off of Love and her dog.
“I just picked my dog up and ran to the car and my other neighbor was outside. She had heard me screaming and she helped me get the dog to the vet,” she said.
The Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office said the owner of the pit bull, 42-year-old William Dempsey, is being held accountable for the attack.
He is now facing a charge of improperly restraining the dog. The pit bull was seized by animal control officers and is now being held for rabies observation.
Love and her dog are now recovering from their wounds at home.
“I’m just glad he’s alive, you know? He’s a good dog,” she said.
