Dog attack victim: ‘I told myself I think you’re dead’

A Norfolk County woman is recovering at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton after a horrific attack by a dog.

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Chris Bonnett, age 75, said she was taking her garbage out to a bin in a wooden corral at a small condominium complex on Nov. 1 in the village of Nixon, located northwest of Simcoe, Ontario.

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“As I was starting to come out, I could hear a dog barking in the distance and then I heard growing very close outside the door,” she shared in a phone interview from her hospital bed. “I wasn’t really afraid yet until I opened the door and saw who was sitting there. I know the face of a pit bull; you see enough of them on the news.”

Bonnett tried to get back inside the wooden corral, but the wheel on the large door wasn’t working well, she said.

“When I saw him there, I said to myself ‘I think you’re dead’. That’s what went through my mind,” she recalled. “He got me. It was pretty scary.

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“I was yelling and screaming because he had me on the ground. I managed to get up once or twice, but he got me back down again.”

Bonnett said she believes the dog’s owner heard her screams and emerged from a neighboring unit and, with the help of another neighbor, pulled the dog off her.

Jon Raddon, the victim’s son-in-law, told the Brantford Expositor that her injuries include many puncture wounds to her legs and arms as well as a large bite on her thigh.

“The left side of her face was torn open almost back to the rear teeth from the nose/eye corner,” Raddon noted. “A five- to six-inch section of her right-side scalp is gone completely with only just enough tissue left for a skin graft.”

He added that a vacuum patch has been placed on her scalp in an attempt to reduce the wound size before moving forward with reconstructive surgery plans.

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“Her face has been stitched up as close as one-quarter inch to her eye and down to her mouth,” explained Raddon. “Fortunately, no organs, eyes, brain or bone damage.”

The dog is currently in quarantine at Hillside Kennels Animal Control near Innerkip that provides animal control services to Norfolk County.

Police have charged a 57-year-old Norfolk County woman with failing to prevent a dog from biting, attacking a person or domestic animal. A conviction could result in a fine of up to $10,000 and/or six months in jail.

Norfolk OPP said Monday that the dog is an American bulldog, however Hillside owner/operator Tracey Gibson disagrees.

“I don’t believe this is an American bulldog,” she said. “It definitely looks like it has some pit (pit bull) in it.”

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Gibson said the dog was surrendered by its owners and is in a 10-day quarantine period.

“This dog is going to be euthanized. It has nothing to do with the breed of the dog,” she explained. “This was a pretty severe attack. It can’t be taken lightly.

“Some dogs have a look and when you see that look, you know that you don’t want to mess with this dog. This dog kind of has that look.”

Pit bulls – including American Staffordshire terriers, American pit bull terriers, or Staffordshire bull terriers — were banned in Ontario in 2005 under breed specific legislation making changes to the Dog Owners’ Liability Act.

“I don’t believe that pit bulls are mean in nature at all,” Gibson stated. “It’s how any dog ​​is brought up.”

Meantime, Bonnett continues to recover in hospital and may be released in a few days.

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A teacher in Toronto in her younger years, she lived in Brantford for decades where she worked at Spalding’s, Levi Strauss, and at a travel agency.

She had just moved into the condominium complex in Nixon at the beginning of October. She expressed apprehension about walking to the garbage corral now.

“It’s very traumatic,” she shared. “I don’t know how I’ll be when I get back (home). I just don’t know.”

Bonnett considers herself lucky the dog didn’t bite her throat or eyes.

“If it had happened at Halloween, there could have been little kids running around and they wouldn’t have been able to get him off,” she observed. “That really scared me thinking about that.”

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