u/Historical-Ad-6738

Back in March I (23 F) was charged at & knocked to the ground by 2 pitbull mixes while walking in my neighborhood. I’ve always been more on the shy side with anxiety, but walking was always something I genuinely enjoyed that helped me relieve stress, even though the fear & paranoia of something happening to me was always in the back of my mind. Back in March, this came true. The incident happened like this. I was on my walk as usual, almost done & on my way home I decided to take a turn I don’t usually go for. What occurred honestly feels like a Final Destination freak accident. Right as I was passing by the owner’s home on the opposite side of the street, he opened his door & both of his dogs who were unleashed ran at me & knocked me to the ground.

The first 1 I saw coming as it immediately bolted out of the house & charged at me, I stood where I was & tried to remain calm as I knew running & freaking out would make things worse. The first 1 crowded at me & I could feel its face on my leg, to this day I’m still thanking god that I chose to wear leggings & not shorts. At this point I was yelling & I could feel it backing off, but as soon as I looked up a second pit came charging after the first & immediately knocked me onto the pavement, breaking my phone screen & knocking my keys with my safety whistle feet from my hands. This happened within a matter of minutes, & I guess my yelling & the owner managing to control his dogs stopped anything serious from happening. I hit my head & jaw when I fell so it’s honestly kind of a blur what happened but I’m incredibly grateful nothing worse happened to me aside from hitting my head & scraping my arm & elbow when I fell. When I managed to get up & grab my things the owner approached me while his dogs were now in his car. I could tell he was shaken up too, saying things like ‘I didn’t see you’ & ‘usually they just get right in the truck’. He also said ‘If you didn’t-’ before stopping his sentence which honestly pissed me off because I didn’t do a damn thing wrong aside from innocently walking when his pits charged at me. He apologized multiple times & asked me if I was okay, to which I said I was, he even asked me if I wanted to meet his ‘puppies’, telling me how they’re quote ‘friendly, sweet dogs’. I obviously refused & walked home shaking & crying, before going back to their home later that afternoon with a family member to discuss what happened & ask for compensation for my broken phone screen.

His wife was cordial about it & reimbursed me for the phone screen along with giving me an apology card, this was later in the evening after she mentioned how her dogs get ‘overexcited’ & how her husband ‘took them to dog training’. To make matters worse, while we were exchanging information we realized that they live in the house right behind me, & the big, vicious dog that I was sure would have charged at me months earlier if not for the fence between us was actually one of the pitbulls that attacked me that day, so I still end up seeing them every now & then when they’re in the yard. I know they have a family with small children next to them who play outside often & it makes me sick thinking about if that happened to a kid instead of me. Im even considering calling some type of authority about them even though im not sure how I would go about that.

Things are over now obviously & even though I wasn’t harmed physically aside from scarring my arm & pain for days when I tried to open my jaw, mentally I still can’t shake what happened to me & I don’t know if I ever will. I feel a lot of guilt for the way I handled things, thinking that if I was more assertive or physically taller or stronger this wouldn’t have happened to me. I’m not a dog person in general & this incident just sealed it more, I worked up the courage to go on a walk a month later & I ended up having a panic attack & had to call someone to pick me up after I heard loud barking. Even writing this now is very upsetting.

A hobby I enjoyed doing multiple times a week for hours is now something I don’t do at all. My own mother doesn’t even seem to think it was a big deal & I get the sense that she doesn’t take me seriously when I talk about it, I guess because I didn’t come home bloody & mauled it’s no big deal. I see men and women out walking with headphones on wearing skimpy clothes without seemingly a care in the world & I can’t imagine how they do it. Multiple large dogs live in my neighborhood & I tried not to let it bother me before but since what happened I can’t imagine walking like I did before knowing one loose fence is all it would take for worse to occur. I just wish I could enjoy something I like to do safely without fear thanks to these animals. Any words are appreciated. Thanks if you made it this far.