3-16-2013 I had an awe full scare at the park the other day. I took Eli, Lydia and Laney to Pioneer Park while Adriana was at school. We have often gone to this park and the only thing I can say bad about it until now was there are stinky CATS living under the train that is there. The train itself use to be open and you could climb up inside it (actual locomotive) but it has since been gated all the way around and is going through restorations when fully funded. So in the meantime stray cats have come to live their and quite a few too (over 30!) The Humane society finally started to remove them because people were feeding so MORE and MORE cats kept coming! The sand was becoming a "litter box" so they removed them and now only like three are there....I have no idea why I'm telling you all this, it has nothing to do with the attack but I absolutely don't like cats and even called the cops on these two people that came over and fed them (it's illegal to feed them because of the problem their having...).
Okay, so the attack...there is a little half wall that surrounds the playground equipment with openings at two entrances. Lydia was over playing on the wall climbing up on it. I saw this little dog, small mutt half the size of our dogs. It was on a zip leash (kind of like a measuring tape that comes out and back...). Well it had been barking at everything that was around it. The lady was talking with her family at a picnic table outside of the play area and next thing I know I hear Lydia screaming. The dog was over their jumping up on her legs and scratching her trying to bite her, she fell back off onto the ground on her side. I ran to her and she to me...(a good thing because if I had reached the dog I would have punted that dog to kingdom come!) As I held Lydia the lady came over (still holding the leash in her hand) scooped up the dog, said "sorry" and walked away, NEVER GETTING OFF HER PHONE! In the meantime I had taken Lydia over to our area and was "stripping her down" basically to make sure she didn't have any bites. There were scratches all over her and she was crying and crying. I was shaking I was so mad. I felt so helpless. I just sat there and held her until she calmed down. The whole time watching as this lady NEVER got off her phone. Within five minutes of all this happening she got her family together and walked all the way AROUND the outside of the playground to her car that was parked next to mine. She NEVER came over, asked if Lydia was okay. Never even LOOKED in our direction again! I just sat there in disbelief holding my daughter. I have never been so shocked, angry and felt helpless at the same time! I just am amazed at how people just don't care anymore. How distracted we can be by our phones. And how upset I can get when someone hurts my Child. The only good thing about this is I DIDN'T get into some kind of altercation with this lady....or hurt her dog! So now poor Lydia is a little Leary of dogs. She's okay around ours but not other, understandably not to mention she's afraid of anything that moves towards her? I'll explain more of that later.
So biggest lesson learned-
If you have a dog and it attacks someone, GET OFF YOUR PHONE! MAKE SURE EVERYONE IS OK!
