Family thinks dog behind vicious attack in Boulder was sick: "He would never do this otherwise"

A 24-year-old in Boulder is in the hospital with grievous injuries from an attack by his own dog.

"It was my son's best friend," said his mother Tanya Jackson. The dog, an 8-year-old American Bulldog named Dutch, which she further described as a bulldog mastiff, had been with the family since it was a puppy. "My son loved his dog. We all loved the dog."

The animal had been living with her son, who brought it over to the house on Palo Parkway Sunday. As he was trying to get it out of its kennel, it turned on him.

"The dog was sick. And he would never do this otherwise," said Jackson.

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Recently the family had taken the dog to a veterinarian for treatment. It had been bleeding and the animal was placed on antibiotics, which seemed to make the bleeding stop. The family believes the dog had cancer and a scan was scheduled for this week.

On Sunday, neighbors heard screaming as the attack happened, with Jackson's son being followed out of the house under attack.

"I hear her screaming, he's going to kill him. I need help. Somebody help me," said neighbor Shawn West. What he saw was horrifying. "The kid on the ground and the dog. And I see the dog mauling him. He was screaming. He was trying to kick the dog."

West went back to his home and grabbed two knives. He stabbed the dog with each.

"It did something to it," West recalled. "He staggered a little, then he went back to the kid. I don't know how much effect it had."

When police arrived and an officer approached the victim still under attack, the dog went after the officer as well. At first, he tried to tase it.

Interim Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said it was proper to attempt to subdue the animal that way.

"Tasers can be effective on animals but it's not always and in this case, it did not work. I appreciate the fact that we tried less lethal means, but that's not always going to work," Redfearn said.

The officer pulled his gun and fired several shots. West says there were five shots and all appeared to hit the dog. The animal crossed the street and sat down. Then it slowly got up and started coming back. West says the officer saw it coming.

"He turns and looks and realizes it is coming back and he steps forward with his gun drawn and hits him in the head," Redfearn said.

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The dog was down at that point, although it was not declared dead until Animal Control officers arrived and gave it a fatal injection to euthanize the injured animal.

Boulder's interim police chief believes the shooting was the right thing to do.

"It seems completely justified in the circumstance," he said. "In fact, I believe if the officer had not acted in the way that he did, likely we would have had more injuries, including the officer."

Two other officers applied tourniquets to the victim's arms. Police say medical staff told them it may have saved the victim, who had injuries to his arms, legs and torso, according to West.

Police say there were no reports of problems with the dog at the address where it happened. It was frequently there.

"I've seen that dog a few times around," West said. "Dog has been a happy-go-lucky. I've petted that dog two times, two, three times."

Jackson realizes Dutch was a strong dog.

"The dog's ability to hurt somebody is obvious. They are big dogs," she said. But she does not blame the breed. "I was blaming myself, thinking that I didn't get him help fast enough. Or I wasn't expeditiously, but you can only take your dog to the vet so many times in the month. It had been like the third or fourth time that he had been in the last couple of months."

"You have to remind yourself at the end of the day they're animals and sometimes animals have unpredictable behavior," said Redfearn.

He said he was not aware of any reports of rabies in the area. Dutch's body has been sent to experts at Colorado State University for a necropsy to see how the animal died and if there were any apparent causes for its behavior.