She ran straight to the emergency department of The Ottawa Hospital’s Civic Campus. Bella, a 17-month-old Miniature Schnauzer-Yorkshire Terrier mix known as a Snorkie, was walking with owner Bruce Simpson in the Experimental Farms’s corn and bean fields at about 5:30pm when they encountered a woman and her dog, a German shepherd mix.
Neither animal was on a lead, despite a long-standing policy that dogs on the farm’s property must be restrained. The snarling dog ran directly at Simpson and poor Bella, who weighs just 14 pounds.
Before either Simpson or the other dog’s owner could react, it had grabbed Bella in its jaws and given her several vigorous shakes.
The attack lasted just a few seconds. Simpson jumped at the large dog to separate it from Bella, and the woman managed to get her dog on a lead. “I was just screaming at her, very upset,” a still-shaken Simpson recalled.
The angry exchange continued for several minutes as Simpson called 911. “She was saying, ‘I didn’t know anyone was here. I came because I didn’t expect anybody else to be around,’” Simpson said. After refusing to give him her name, she turned and walked away.
Still on the phone with 911, Simpson began a frantic search. It wasn’t until he returned to his car, where the 911 operator had told him to wait for police, that he noticed the voice-mail message on his cellphone.
It was from Josh Picknel, a medic with the Ottawa Paramedic Service. Despite several deep bites and a three-to-four-inch flap of skin torn from her back, Bella had managed to make her way through the corn field, cross six lanes of rush-hour traffic, and present herself at the Civic’s emergency department.
Buchanan joked that Bella’s appearance at the emergency department was a sign of “animal intelligence. If you’re hurt, the first one you want to call is a paramedic. Dogs just instinctively know that.” Simpson was impressed, too. “What a smart dog!” he exclaimed.
“That’s pretty much the best place she could have gone. Which is weird.” After paramedics ferried Simpson and Bella to the Ottawa Veterinary Hospital on Boyd Avenue, Bella underwent three hours of surgery to stitch her together again.
She was released late Saturday to her owners, though there’s some concern that the strip of torn skin might not re-attach and heal properly. He’s still upset that the woman allowed her large dog to run free. “If she knew there was a potential for that to happen, the dog should never have been off lead and should have been muzzled,” he said.
Simpson has been in touch with city bylaw officers and has filled out a report on the incident. He’d like the woman to cover his veterinary bills, but most of all, he wants to make something is done so her dog doesn’t attack another defenceless animal. “I just don’t want it to happen to somebody else.”
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