A 9-year-old Utah girl was injured Thursday when she was attacked by two dogs while riding her bike.
Shortly after 4:30 p.m., the child was on her bike in the Meadow Ranch area of Eagle Mountain, when two “large dogs,” which police identified as a mastiff and a wire terrier, knocked her off her bike. The dogs bit and scratched her on her torso — front and back — and arms, said Sgt. Spencer Cannon of the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.
“The wounds were serious, but not life-threatening,” he said. “But it was just terrifying for her.”
The girl might have been more seriously injured if she had not been wearing a coat, Cannon added.
The attack continued for more than a minute before a man who lives nearby ran to help the girl and drove off the dogs. “Even then, they didn’t run away. They just stayed nearby,” Cannon said. “And then they went after another girl who was riding her bike.”
The second child was not injured, “but it was terrifying for her, too.”
Sheriff’s deputies located and seized the dogs. They are being held at the North Utah Valley Animal Shelter, and their owners were both cited for allowing the dogs to run loose and allowing the attack.
