The Temple-Greenville Police Department is looking for the owners of two dogs which attacked a Peterborough woman and her dog on a Temple Mountain trail earlier this month.
The woman, Anna Cote, was bitten on her leg, and her dog (a 5-year-old Pomeranian-Chow Chow mix named Milo) suffered bite wounds on its back after being attacked by two pit bulls on the Beebe Trail on Aug. 8. Cote was hiking with her four grandchildren, who were not injured.
Cote said she was walking down the trail when she saw a man and his off-leash black pit bull. As soon as the man saw Cote, he put his dog on a leash, Cote said.
As she made her way down the mountain, she came upon a woman who had two pit bulls, one golden brown in color and the other black and white. The dogs, who were being held by their collars, escaped their owner’s grasp and started circling Cote and her dog. The dogs then knocked Cote over and the brown dog bit her leg, she said.
“I didn’t feel anything, I was shocked,” Cote said.
Cote was able to fight off the brown dog by hitting it in the head, but it let go and joined in with the black-and-white dog, which was attacking her dog.
The dogs eventually ran off toward their owner who tackled them as Cote and her grandchildren escaped.
As Cote made her way back down to her car and called 911, her sneaker filled with blood. She didn’t see the man or the woman come back down the mountain.
“The owners just stood and watched while my grandchildren were screaming,” said Cote in a Facebook post, where she asked for help locating the owners.
Cote had eight wounds and needed 30 stitches. The largest cuts were on the back of her calf.
Cote talked about the event at her home Wednesday — the first day since the incident where she hasn’t had to go to the hospital.
Cote, a 54-year-old minister who writes and performs her own Christian rock songs, said she wasn’t scared.
“I don’t know, because I don’t walk in fear, but in the spirit of God, which is in power and in love,” she said. “I’m just grateful that my grandchildren weren’t attacked. If anyone had to be attacked, I’m glad it was me.”
Temple-Greenville Police Chief James McTague is hoping to locate the owners of the pit bulls to find out if they were up to date on their rabies shots. Temple-Greenville police were the first to respond to the incident. McTague asked for Peterborough police’s help to search for the unidentified dog owners because the parking lot at the Temple Mountain Recreation Site is in Peterborough’s jurisdiction.
The unidentified owners could be facing fines or a civil forfeiture. If the dogs are determined to be a threat to public safety, state law allows for a district or municipal court hearing.
“My biggest fear is that they’ve done this to me, they’ve done it before and they’re going to do it again,” Cote said. “It seemed to me that they should have done the right thing and come back down.
“But I don’t have any ill will. I don’t have any anger. I forgive them.”