-
Photo courtesy of Gertrude Bishop's family. Gertrude Bishop recovers in the hospital following a dog attack on May 26.
Hawthorne neighbors had been complaining about the dogs who attacked an 86-year-old woman last week for more than a year, documents show.
Files obtained from the Putnam County Animal Control Department show complaints about “aggressive” pit bulls on Little Orange Lake Drive from April 6, 2022. The case files from Animal Control document multiple calls and reports. The documents reference the same property where two dogs lived that attacked Army veteran and Hawthorne resident Gertrude Bishop on May 26, 2023.
“They harassed the whole neighborhood,” said Erin Dowling, a neighbor who frequently called Animal Control to report the dogs’ behavior.
The dogs, identified as pit bull mixes, are expected to be euthanized but remained in a 10-day quarantine as of Thursday, according to county officials.
May 26, 2023
Law enforcement officers and Animal Control officials responded to a home on Little Orange Lake Drive in Hawthorn on the morning of May 26 after two dogs reportedly attacked Bishop in her own driveway.
According to Bishop’s son, Wayne Thomas, she was bringing in groceries from her car when the two dogs ran across the street and attacked her. He said his mother received “multiple lacerations over all of her body, a damaged trachea, a right ear that was chewed off and a right leg so badly damaged from the attack that it had to be amputated.”
Bishop remained hospitalized today and was scheduled for another procedure to clean her leg, Thomas said in a post on his family’s GoFundMe page for Bishop.
“Mom is slowly doing better. She is now speaking in full sentences since they added a one-way value to her trachea tube, she is moving around more … during physical therapy and the swelling around her face and hands is slowly retreating,” Thomas wrote online. “She is still having difficulty sleeping and is frustrated with all of the procedures she has to do but God is good.”
The incident was reported to the Sheriff’s Office at 7:27 a.m. on May 26, according to the sheriff’s office. By the time deputies arrived, the dogs involved in the attack were back in their owner’s yard and “aggressively growled and barked” when deputies approached the property.
When deputies contacted the dogs’ owner, the owner reportedly told deputies he did not know how the dogs got out of his yard. The owner said he knows the dogs have gotten out of the yard through holes in the fence before and also acknowledged that he knew his front gate had been left open that morning, the Sheriff’s Office report states.
The dog owner loaded the dogs into Animal Control’s truck and agreed to sign them over to Animal Control for euthanization when agency officials arrived, according to case documents obtained Thursday.
The Animal Control officer reported going to Bishop’s home on May 26 after arriving at 8:35 a.m. There, the officer noticed big spots “of what appeared to be blood,” two shoes laying in different places across the yard and flat grass “as if something had been dug across it,” the case report states.
The officer reported that both of the found shoes appeared to be covered in blood, as was the bumper of a car parked at the woman’s house.
“Dangerous” dogs
Complaints about the dogs date back to April 2022, documents from Animal Control show.
Agency officials said Thursday that the dogs had not been deemed “dangerous” before the recent attack. However, five cases had been filed with Animal Control about the dogs prior to the recent incident
According to county ordinance, dogs are classified as dangerous after interviewing and taking a sworn affidavit from the person making the claims against the dogs, interviewing the dog owner and interviewing other witnesses.
If a dog is declared dangerous, the owner must sign off that they acknowledge the classification and they have seven calendar days to appeal the ruling, the ordinance states. When a dog is declared dangerous, Animal Control officers recommend the dog’s euthanization.
Nine dogs are currently declared dangerous in the county, and all but one have been euthanized, the county’s executive director of the Planning & Development Services Department, Bryan Helms, said Thursday in an email. The Planning & Development department oversees Animal Control.
Previous calls
Dowling, who moved to Little Orange Lake Drive a little more than a year ago, called Animal Control for the first time on April 6, 2022, records show.
She called to tell the agency about two “aggressive” pit bulls in the area of Little Orange Lake Drive and told the officers that they belonged to someone a few doors down from her home.
“(She) advises this is an ongoing issue and complainant is fearful that dogs will attack individuals as they are trying to exit their vehicle,” the case file from Animal Control states.
An Animal Control officer responded to the dog owner’s property five days later and spoke to the owner who told the officer that the dogs were contained.
The same officer responded again May 5, 2022, and spoke with a woman at the owner’s home about a hole in their fence and the dogs roaming the area. The woman said the owner fixed the hole. The Animal Control officer asked the woman to keep the dogs contained on the property and told her the dogs needed to have proof of rabies vaccinations by June 3, 2022, the report states.
Despite officers returning multiple times to the property, the notice of vaccinations was reportedly never given.
The same officer returned to the property again on June 16, 2022, after complaints of the dogs being aggressive. The officer reported that he seized three of the dogs’ puppies after they were reported damaging neighbors’ furniture “and being destructive.”
The officer made contact with the owner’s girlfriend at the property that day, according to the case file. She told the officer to take the three puppies away because the owner “will not keep them contained,” the report states.
Despite the puppies being taken away, Dowling said other dogs were returned to the owner and the issues continued.
Dowling was afraid to pull out of her driveway or get the mail, she said Thursday. She said she couldn’t enjoy her yard or her dock because of the dogs. Dowling claims one of the male and female dogs “tore up” one of its own puppies and almost killed a neighbor’s cat.
“Something has to be done,” she said Thursday about pit bulls in the county..
Dowling said she called, texted and emailed Animal Control officers numerous times about the dogs. A case file from Sept. 20 shows Dowling called again that day and told Animal Control she attempted to resolve the issue with the dog owner herself “but dog owner states ‘just shoot them.’”
On Oct. 4, an Animal Control officer returned to the property, could not make contact with anyone but left a notice on the property for the owner for failure to comply with proof of rabies vaccinations, a case report shows.
Another neighbor called in a welfare check for the dogs in December after they were reportedly locked in a shed and left in the cold. At the end of January, Animal Control reported that the owner put a heat lamp and hay into the shed for the dogs.
Neighbors called again in February to report the dogs screaming and barking nonstop. An agency official visited the property again twelve days later to see the dogs tied up in the front yard, a case file states. No other action was reported that day.
The most recent report comes from the May 26 incident.
Dowling said she feels as though the Animal Control Department does not care what happens when they receive complaints.
She said she told Animal Control officers prior to the May 26 incident she worried those dogs would hurt or kill someone.
“I think they’re just as responsible as the owner,” Dowling said Thursday about Animal Control.
County officials did not respond with a comment by press time Friday.