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Woman bitten breaking up dog fight

Ralph Bartholdt Staff Writer | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 8 years, 3 months AGO
by Ralph Bartholdt Staff Writer
| August 29, 2017 1:00 AM

COEUR d’ALENE — A dog fight between two pit bulls in Coeur d’Alene resulted in injuries to one of the dog’s owners and a puncture wound on the lip of one of the dogs.

Dispatchers fielded a call Thursday that a Coeur d’Alene woman was being attacked by pit bulls in her yard on the 1000 block of Woolsey Avenue.

Christina Linn, one of the dog’s owners, said her pit bull, a 2-year-old, brindle-and-white male named Boo; and another pitbull, a tan-and-white, 1-year-old male named Indo, were engaged in a dogfight when Linn reached in.

“I was dumb. This is all my fault,” a bleeding Linn told police. “I know better not to reach into a dog fight.”

Neighbor Kaylin Ontiveros called police Thursday afternoon when she heard Linn’s screams and the dogs viciously barking, Ontiveros said. She assumed Linn was being attacked. Her husband, she said, kicked in the neighbor’s fence to help Linn, striking one of the dogs over the head with a board, which ended the dog fight.

When police arrived 10 minutes later around 5 p.m., a medical team was bandaging Linn’s fingers.

Linn told officers the two dogs — hers and a friend’s — were getting along fine when the fight

broke out. She ran outside to break the pit bulls apart and was bitten.

Coeur d’Alene Police Officer Laurie Deus noted in her report that one of the pit bulls, Indo, which was in the yard when police arrived, had a puncture wound in his lip and was bloodied.

“He had blood all over him, but Christina said it was her blood,” Deus wrote in her report.

The dog appeared frightened, but eventually it wagged its tail, she said.

The other dog was in the house. It was also bloodied, but appeared unscathed, Deus said in the report.

Police said both dogs would need to be quarantined if the owners could not find the dogs’ vaccination information.

Linn suffered bites on the fingers of both hands and told police she would visit an urgent care facility. Both owners said they planned to neuter the dogs.

No citations were issued.

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