SALEM, Ind. (WDRB) -- A five year old girl is recovering after a vicious pit bull attack inside a southern Indiana home.
With his ears reared back and eyes wide open, the one and a half year old blue pit bull named Ruger seemed anxious and unhappy. He sat and shook behind a locked four-by-eight steel cage at the Salem Animal Shelter.
Animal Control Officer Randy Lee says this is doggie jail, and this dog is on death row: "I don't like pit bulls, I never have. If it was up to me there wouldn't be any in Washington County, period."
A five year old girl was attacked inside a Hardinsburg home Friday. Lee says Ruger mauled the child's face. The Orange County Hospital says she suffered severe facial lacerations.
Family members say the child was taken to Kosair Children's Hospital and has been released.
Lee says it's unclear what caused the dog to snap. He cannot say if it was provoked.
The dog is described as a family pet, though the girl was a visitor in the home. The family willingly turned it over to Animal Control.
"The family doesn't want to the dog back," Lee says. "They don't want it adopted out. They do want it put to sleep so this won't happen to another child."
Ruger will be quarantined for ten days and then put to sleep. While his fate is sealed, the investigation into exactly how this happened continues.
A man WDRB News was told told owned the dog abruptly sped away as we approached him in town Monday.
Lee, when asked whether there would be any charges in the case, replied, "No sir, there will not be any charges....The dog is in its home, it's on its property. There's not a whole lot you can do in a situation like that."
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