Mother calls for action against dog who bit her 3-year-old in the face

WARNING: Images in this story may be disturbing to some readers. Viewer discretion is advised.

Kayla Ward was coming home from Easter dinner on April 1 with her two daughters, Easter baskets in hand, when she says a dog visiting her building lunged at her three-year-old and bit the girl twice in the face. She says that she hopes the dog who allegedly attacked her daughter will be put down.

“It happened so fast,” the 24-year-old mother of two said. Ward says she, her boyfriend and her two girls had just reached the door in their building in Stirling, Ont., when a dog visiting the building silently slipped out of the apartment it was in and allegedly attacked her daughter.

“He didn’t hesitate to latch on to the first person in front of him,” Ward said about the dog.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "He didn't hesitate to latch on to the first person in front of him," Ward said about the dog.

Ward’s daughter was rushed to the Belleville General Hospital and had to have at least 59 stitches in her face. According to her mother, the three-year-old had to have stitches in 11 different parts of her face but has five major lacerations, and five spots that will seriously scar.

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As for the dog that she says bit her daughter, Ward says she had previously thought it to be “not very well-mannered.”

OPP say they have never received a report or complaint about the dog in question before, but they did confirm that the animal that allegedly attacked the young girl did not belong to residents of the apartment building.

Police have not released the names of the owner or the guardian of the dog, and no charges have been laid because the investigation is still ongoing.

“We did everything in our power to keep our distance,” said Ward, who also has a four-year-old daughter.

Despite all of Ward’s efforts to keep her children away from the animal, she says a split-second while she was reaching for her keys put her children face-to-face with the dog that had caused her concern.

Ward, who works as an animal groomer, is trying to teach her daughters not to fear dogs. But in this case, she says she thinks the dog should be terminated.

“Something needs to be done,” Ward said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Something needs to be done," Ward said.

She also says her three-year-old is healing well, but in some places, like her nose, where the bite was deep, or under her chin, where the skin didn’t lie flat, the healing is taking a bit longer.

“She doesn’t understand how bad it could have been. She’s just starting to notice the scars that are there,” Ward said.

“I try not to cry while she’s around because then she asks why I’m crying and it makes her upset.”

As for the dog that allegedly attacked the young girl, the OPP say it was put into quarantine for 10 days after the incident.

According to Dave Dodgson, program manager at Hastings Prince Edward Public Health, dogs are always held in quarantine after a bite attack to see if they have rabies. If the dog survives the quarantine, it is not infected. Dodgson says he can not comment on this specific case, but he says it’s been a very long time since there was a positive rabies case in the area.

Dodgson added that once the quarantine ends, the dog is allowed to be out and about among the public.

Ward says the landlord told her the dog is out of the residence and that it will not be let back in. The landlord could not be reached for comment. Yet, Central Hastings OPP say there is no way the police can legally keep the dog away from that residence, or any residence, unless a there is a court order in place.

Ward is sharing her story so that other people might read it, and take action when they see aggression from their pets. She hopes that by telling her story, others might prevent something similar from happening.