Three-year-old girl suffers severe injuries from dog bite

An Ardmore child is recovering from serious injuries to her face after she was bitten by a pit bull Sunday evening.

Ardmore Police Captain Keith Ingle says a three-year-old girl was with her mother visiting a friend at the house when the pit bull bit her face causing her lip and chin to be severely injured.

Ingle says the child was rushed to the hospital and went into the surgery.

The dog was taken to the animal shelter to be quarantined and monitored for signs of rabies.

"(The) parent wasn't expecting to go in this home and have her child harmed by a dog," Ingle said. "This isn't on the parent, this is on the dog owner."

Ingle says Thursday police were called to the house at the 1100 block of C street SE after an altercation broke out between the owner and a man who brought his mother to pick up property from the house.

Ingle says the owner ordered the dog to attack the man but the dog bit the older woman in the leg instead.

Police citied the dog owner - requiring him to quarantine the dog in the house or at the shelter and provide shot records.

The owner did not have shot records for the dog and three days later the dog was loose inside the home when it bit the child.

"You know you can't go by the breed," Ingle said. "It's all about how the dog is raised."

"Depends on how the dog is raised and what situation it's in but I don't think pit bulls are all bad," Arnie Smith said.

Arnie Smith lives nearby and was saddened to hear what happened.

"I hate it for her because she will be afraid of dogs for the rest of her life," Smith said.

"The health department gets assigned these cases and then the District Attorney's office will look at it and look at the record of the dog, with having two incidents within this time frame I would say it's probably a good candidate to be euthanized," Ingle said.

Ingle says the little girl is expected to survive.

They will be sending the case to the DA to consider criminal charges against the owner whose name is not being released at this time.