For the past month Lynn McKay has not been able to sleep. She has lost 15 pounds. There is no feeling in her right forearm. She lives in constant fear.
On Aug. 19 the 51-year-old local mother of six was the victim of an unprovoked dog attack.
And today McKay wants justice. She wants the dog put down, never to harm anyone again.
“I would like to see that dog destroyed,” said McKay, a cleaner at a local bar. “If it would have been a child that was attacked, that kid would be dead.
“I don't think it is safe,” she added. “I had a dog once that bit me. That dog was gone within a week. I had six kids.”
McKay said she was walking in the back alley behind her home on 51 Street with her husband James Porter when a large dog owned by her neighbour attacked her without provocation.
“The dog broke off from its chain and knocked me to the ground,” said McKay. “He grabbed me and shook me. He took a hunk out of me.
“The owner came along and was busy getting his dog confined,” she added. “My husband took me to hospital here and they bandaged me up.”
But her wounds were so severe she was sent to Peter Lougheed Centre in Calgary. To fix the gaping wound on her right forearm doctors had to perform a skin graft, removing and transplanting skin from her thigh to her arm.
“They say it is good, I don't know,” said McKay. “It (forearm) has no feeling. I guess the nerve is gone.”
In the meantime, McKay said the attack has also caused emotional trauma. She lives under constant fear.
“I don't walk anywhere. I no longer sit in the backyard,” she said. “After the ladies did my hair at the salon they had to drive me home. I live only half a block away.”
RCMP said late last month that the owner of the dog was charged under the local dog control bylaw and was fined $300.
As for the fate of the dog, McKay said she talked to the owner's girlfriend and was told there were no plans to put the canine down.
McKay said she has spoken to both the town and Richard Marz, provincial MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, about the incident. She said she has also retained a lawyer to begin civil action against the dog owner's insurance company.
She said Marz was sympathetic to her situation but added Norm McInnis, the town's chief administrative officer, would not move to have the dog destroyed.
However, McInnis countered that neither the town nor he have the authority to order the dog destroyed.
He pointed out the RCMP is still investigating the case to see whether a provincial Dangerous Dogs Act charge is appropriate. If that is pursued and the case goes before a provincial court judge and the owner found guilty, the judge can order the dog to be destroyed.
McInnis added local bylaw officers could also review the Vicious Dogs section of its bylaw. If there is no order for the dog to be destroyed by the provincial court, the town can then have the dog declared vicious.
While the municipal legislation has no power to order the dog destroyed, there are many new restrictions that are put on the animal, including having the dog muzzled and confining the animal indoors, or locked in a pen.
