Nov. 5 update: Animal control officials have confirmed the dog will be euthanized.
Kyla Johnson has fresh bandages covering her left hand, both forearms and thighs, hiding the bite marks she suffered when her recently adopted pit bull attacked her.
But the Colwood, B.C. woman doesn’t blame her pet, Rex, and instead describes him several times as “a good dog.”
“That wasn’t him that night,” Johnson said, referring to Saturday when she and a couple family members were attacked by the dog.
She said her father and his fiancée were in the living room playing Call of Duty, a first-person shooter video game, when their voices started to get louder and Rex exhibited signs of panic and started to yelp.
But when Rex seemed to have calmed down and Johnson started to play with him, things took a turn.
“Something in him just switched,” she said. “He went after my dad and he just jumped on my dad…I jumped on top of the dog and I was trying to pull my dad’s skin from under him.”
Johnson couldn’t get Rex off of her father, so she tried to distract him with his treats but it didn’t work, she said.
“He wouldn’t stop. The screams –- they were horrible.”
Authorities were already on their way when Johnson jumped out of the window with bite wounds.
“I flagged down police and I just said, ‘Please don’t shoot my dog, please don’t shoot my dog,’” she said through tears.
Her father, aunt and fiancé were also treated for bite marks.
West Shore RCMP said when they arrived to the home, they found 13 adults and children barricaded inside to protect themselves from the dog.
Police and animal control safely removed Rex and he’s since been taken to an animal shelter.
Police said they arrested a “heavily intoxicated male,” but Johnson said her fiancé was distraught because she was being taken into the ambulance and he couldn’t go along with them. She said her fiancé wasn’t actually arrested.
There were also four children in the home, but Johnson said they were in their bedrooms sleeping and nowhere near the dog when he attacked.
Rex will likely be euthanized
The chief bylaw officer at Capital Region District said Rex will likely be put down because of the severity of what happened.
“This incident was very, very serious, with multiple people being bit. So it is highly unlikely the dog can be rehabilitated,” Don Brown said.
Since the pit bull is a rescue animal from another area, officials do not know his past history.
“It’s always a concern to us when we have a serious attack and we don’t know if the dog has attacked before,” he explained.
On Monday morning, Rex will be assessed to see how he behaves when there are other animals and other people around.
Brown said there is “a very slim” chance that the pit bull wouldn’t be euthanized.
He said in his nearly two decades of experience, there’s only been up to two incidences when a dog in a similar situation was sent to another place, such as a farm, with little activity and few children around.
Even if it appears Rex can be rehabilitated, Brown said, he won’t be returning to Johnson’s home.
“He was a good dog and he doesn’t deserve this.”
Four-year-old Rex was adopted six months ago and what his life was like before then is unknown.
“We don’t know the history of the dog. We don’t know if he was abused. And we tried to take every caution we could,” Johnson explained.
Some of those precautions included having Rex on a leash when he first met the cats in the home and avoiding the same side of the road where there other dogs.
“It took a while for me to be like, ‘OK, we can start introducing the kids and everything, it wasn’t an automatic: everybody see this dog.’”
Johnson has come to terms with the fact that Rex will likely be put down and she said it will be awhile before she will have another dog, but wouldn’t shy away from getting a pit bull.
With files from CTV Vancouver Island
