SAN ANTONIO – Animal Care Services now has custody of the dog that attacked an 80-year-old woman Thursday on the Northwest Side, but San Antonio police still have yet to confirm if they’ve found the dog’s owner.
The San Antonio Police Department said the American Staffordshire Terrier bit the woman’s face and left her with serious injuries. Neighbors who live on Arch Bridge told KSAT they’ve had problems with this dog before.
SAPD said the woman’s granddaughter and her boyfriend were visiting and brought a pit bull to the home.
The granddaughter and her boyfriend were outside the home with the dog. When the 80-year-old woman stepped outside, officers said the dog attacked her face. SAPD stated that the granddaughter was able to take the dog off the woman and contain it.
The older woman was later hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, the department said. SAPD and ACS located the dog inside the home.
SAPD said officers had been called to that home six times in the last year, two of those were for animal bites.
Beatrice Funderburk said her daughter was one of those cases.
Just last week, the dog “ran towards my daughter, broke off the chain and knocked her over to the street,” Funderburk said. “As soon as it knocked her over, it started attacking her.”
Funderburk shared photos with KSAT that show bite marks and bruises on her daughter from the dog. She said over the last week, both SAPD and ACS had been investigating.
Because Funderburk didn’t know the dog’s medical history, she said her daughter has been getting Rabies shots.
A spokesperson for ACS said in the Funderburk case, the “animal’s owner was uncooperative and did not comply with legal quarantine orders.”
Nancy Guevara lives down the road. She had similar concerns.
“We’ve been dealing with this for about a year,” Guevara said. “Every single time we saw (the dog), we were afraid because it’s a big dog.”
ACS did not specify what would happen to the dog or if the dog’s owner would face criminal charges or citations.
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