73-year-old Tallahassee woman bit pit bull to save her terrier

Sun Sentinel

The Associated Press, Posted June 16 2001

TALLAHASSEE -- A 73-year-old woman saved her 9-month-old Scottish terrier by fending off a biting pit bull with bites of her own.

Margaret Hargrove was out for an evening stroll with her dog, Alex, when a pit bull in a nearby yard began to eye the terrier.

Hargrove, a state retiree, tried to steer her dog toward her home, but the female pit bull caught up, clamping its jaws around the terrier's head.

Hargrove tried but couldn't pry the pit bull loose.

“I could see my dog dying right there,” Hargrove told the Tallahassee Democrat on Friday.

That's when she got on her knees and bit down on the back of the pit bull's neck.

“She just went: 'Yip!”' Hargrove said. “I never thought I'd be biting a dog.”

The pit bull let go of the smaller dog and backed off, then bared its teeth at Hargrove, who bit back again.

Then a baseball-bat wielding neighbor ran up and scared the canine off for good.

Hargrove received four stitches in her arm. Her dog also had to receive some stitches and suffered bruised eyes in the Thursday night melee.

“He's not moving around much,” Hargrove told the newspaper. “I didn't realize how scary it was until it was over. Another two minutes and my dog would have been dead.”

Marc Hicks, the pit bull's owner, said he thinks some neighborhood kids may have left his gate open and allowed the dog, named Holly, to escape.

“I guess she's got a streak of wildness toward strange dogs,” he said. “If I'd been out there with a shotgun and seen my dog running at (Hargrove) or her dog, I would have called one time and shot her down myself.”

The attack was the second pit bull assault in Tallahassee this week. Animal control officers said there have been others this year, but cautioned it doesn't make all pit bulls dangerous.

“We're both lucky we didn't get killed,” Hargrove said. “But biting a dog, it's kind of funny.”

Copyright © 2001, The Associated Press

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2001

Answers

Kind of funny???

Friggin' hilarious if you ask me!

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2001

This is a *perfect* example of that old newspaper editor's advice to the new reporter. "When a dog bites a man, that's not news. When a man bites a dog, that's news." Seems it's even better when a woman bites a dog.

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2001

It's how I cured my son of biting. Yeah, I know, parental experts will think I'm a terrible mother, but it worked. Child bit the dog's ear, I bit the child's ear, said, "See how it feels?" and he didn't bite anything ever again. Mind you, at age 35 he still slurps strained baby food. (That was a joke.)

Yep, amazing that it worked for that woman. I was unfortunate enough to witness a pit bull fight when I was doing my ride-alongs with the cops. It took almost a full canister of Capstun to make the dominant dog let go of the other's throat. Red, white and blue--white dogs, red blood, blue police lights. Bad combination. Makes me want to get a concealed carry permit.

That guy who owns the dog? Somebody buy him a five-dollar padlock.

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2001