A small dog was brutally ripped apart and killed by two pit bulls, according to its heartbroken owner, who asked: “What is it going to take to get these dogs taken off the street?”
Monica Reyes told WABC that she and her daughter were walking their 8-year-old Lhasa apso, Juju, last week when they were set upon just yards from her front door in the Throggs Neck Houses — with one of the pit bulls grabbing the helpless pet in its mouth and refusing to let go.
“I was trying to get him out of the pit bull’s mouth while my daughter was crying, and I was trying to protect the kids from getting attacked,” Reyes said.
A passing NYCHA worker tased the main attack dog, which only then dropped Juju’s mangled body, his horrified owner said.
The man and woman with the pit bulls then ran away, Reyes said — with the man yelling, “I’m so sorry, call 911.”
Juju later had to be put down, and Reyes said she was left with little more than a piece of his tail to remember him by.
“That could have been anyone’s family member, anyone’s kid. Like, who’s next?” Reyes asked.
“What is it going to take to get these dogs taken off the street?”
She filed a police report, but under current New York law, dogs are defined as property, and as such, an attack by one animal on another is regarded as a property crime and not a criminal matter, she noted.
The attack came days before two pit bulls savaged a Chihuahua in a separate attack on the Upper West Side.
Horror footage filmed last weekend shows the small dog, Penny, being mauled while the pit bulls’ owner does nothing to help before walking off.
Penny survived, but her owner, Lauren Claus, has called for a change in the law to find owners of aggressive dogs liable in such attacks.
Now a new law, named after Penny, has been introduced by New York State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar.
“Penny’s Law” will criminalize negligent dog handling in the case of a dog attack, as well as criminalize leaving the scene similar to a hit-and-run case, while cracking down on owners who illegally let their dogs off-leash.
“Currently, people get away with letting their dogs attack or kill other dogs. Often it is the same people again and again,” Rajkumar told PIX11.