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An elderly North Carolina couple is recovering together from a pit bull attack that resulted in the woman’s leg amputated.
Bobby Joyner, 82, and Annie Joyner, 78, were attacked Sunday in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, while hiking.
Officers arrived at the scene and saw a pit bull attack the couple. The responding officer was also bitten in the thigh.
The officer then fired her pistol twice and hit the dog, who was taken into custody by Rocky Mount Animal Control.
The owner of the property where the attack took place is Julie Proctor, who said the dog belonged to her grandson. After the attack, Proctor said the dog had been euthanized.
Authorities say the dog ran loose, which is a violation of a city ordinance that Proctor will be charged for disobedience.
Annie Joyner (right), 78, and Bobby Joyner (left), 82, recover together in hospital after being attacked by a pit bull on Sunday
Annie Joyner lost a foot after the attack and needs skin grafts on her remaining foot. Bobby Joyner had to have surgery on his arm
The Joyners were taken to ECU Health with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The responding officer was also treated and released.
Melissa Joyner, the couple’s daughter, says she is still in shock.
“I’m still a little bit in shock. I know my sister is too, but we’ll stay here with my parents for as long as they need,” she said. WRAL news.
Melissa added that she is looking for owner responsibility for the dog’s behavior.
“I mean, I have dogs too, and we like dogs,” she said. “So in our view, it’s really not the dog’s fault. The owner had to take more responsibility.’
Proctor and the Joyners had been neighbors for years before the attack.
Rocky Mount, North Carolina home where the pit bull attack took place on Sunday
Melissa Joyner, the couple’s daughter, said she was still in shock from the attack in which her mother lost a foot.
A police officer who arrived on the scene on Sunday was also bitten in the thigh by the unruly dog
Proctor said the dog was on a leash and tied up in the yard before the attack.
“He somehow withdrew from the harness. I think the adrenaline is in him,” Proctor told the local sales outlet. “That’s why they think he wasn’t on his harness, but he wasn’t.”
She continued: “As a pit bull, he was just very protective of his property and people, and I hate it more than anyone that it happened.”
“They euthanized him. My grandson is very upset, but I didn’t know what else to do,’
When asked if she felt she was to blame for the attack, Proctor said, “No, not really, because like I said, [the dog] was leashed in his yard.’
The couple’s granddaughter, Ann Joyner, started a GoFundMe to help pay for her grandparents’ medical expenses after the cruel encounter.
“The owner of the dog (,) well (,) they get no help there and the costs add up,” she wrote. “God bless you all.”
Mia and Cheech, the two pit bulls who fatally attacked two small children and mauled their mother, have been euthanized. The family called their dogs ‘house lions’ and it is unknown why they recently became aggressive
Two-year-old Lilly Bennard and her five-month-old brother Hollace were killed on October 5 when the family’s two pit bulls attacked the children. Their mother Kirstie tried to fend off the dogs, but was herself seriously injured in the attack on their Memphis home
The Joyners are the latest victims of a series of attacks by pit bulls and two Dogo Argentinos, each of which was seriously injured or killed.
On October 5, two children were killed when their family’s two pit bulls – who had owned them for eight years – attacked them and their mother.
Two-year-old Lilly Bennard and five-month-old Hollace died after the attack in Memphis, Tennessee.
Kirstie Bennard, 30, was left with serious injuries and covered in bite marks.
The two dogs were euthanized.
On September 14, an 89-year-old woman was killed by her family’s two pit bulls in Golden, Colorado. Her 12-year-old grandson was also seriously injured.
Law enforcement officers used non-lethal shotguns to get the animals away from the woman, but were unable to save her life.
Both animals were euthanized.
And finally, an 80-year-old California woman was killed by two Argentine hunting dogs that attacked her while she was walking last Friday morning in Baldy Mesa, a town in the Mojave Desert.
The woman – Soon Han – was found dead during a road trip in the rural community of San Bernardino. The coroner said she suffered “serious injuries during the attack and was pronounced dead at the scene”.
The dog breed, Dogo Argentinos, was first bred for big game hunting in Argentina nearly a century ago. They are designed to hunt wild boars and cougars.
The breed is formally banned or has ownership restrictions in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Turkey, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and the Cayman Islands.
A Dogo Argentino (pictured) killed an 80-year-old woman in California on Friday