WILTON MANORS, Fla. – Maria Zapata was walking her dog Sunday morning when suddenly, a bigger, more aggressive dog came running from a yard and charged at them.
Surveillance video from a Wilton Manors neighborhood, just south of Oakland Park Boulevard near Northwest 9th Avenue, showed the terrifying moments.
“He come right away to us. As soon as I saw that, I take my dog with me. Then he attacked both me and my dog,” Zapata said.
In the video, sent to Local 10, the owner of the aggressive dog comes running after the animal who had slipped out from the backyard.
But Zapata and her small dog were mauled during the attack.
“I was very scared. You don’t want to go through what I passed through. It was very scary,” she said.
Zapata’s hand is stitched after a trip to the hospital. She still has blood on her shirt and a rip in her pants from the encounter that continued until a Good Samaritan driving by stopped.
“It escalated where I was out of my car and I just held it really tightly so it could get off the dog,” Victoria Geschleider said.
She said she held onto the bigger dog.
“I was trying to hold it in place, because the other woman who was the possible owner didn’t have any control," Geschleider said, adding that she feared the smaller dog would be killed.
In the video, the aggressive dog’s owner can be seen trying and failing to control the dog.
The 5-year-old Australian silky terrier named Wufus, the smaller dog, sustained injuries to its neck and on its leg, but is expected to be okay.
Local 10 stopped by the home of the aggressive dog, where the owner was anything but remorseful.
“Is this the first time somebody has a problem with dogs like this? Millions of innocent people in this country and you need to do the drama for the dog?”
Zapata does not fault the aggressive dog, but she does blame the owners for not properly controlling, train, or securing the animal.
Neighbors told Local 10 that there have been other close calls with the same dog, who they said is a pit bull or a pit-bull mix, in the past. oAfter Zapata’s attack, Local 10 has learned the police are now involved.