Kooley the bull mastiff has never bit anyone before and it’s doubtful he did last week, says the owner of the dog suspected to have ripped open a woman’s face.
Marty Larson said his large male dog is not the vicious animal he’s been made out to be.
“He’s the biggest suck in the world. He couldn’t kill a fly if he tried,” Larson said on Wednesday.
Lynda O’Sullivan, 47, who has 56 stitches under her nose and left cheek, says the dog lunged at her and bit her face on July 16.
It took a three-hour surgery to stitch up her wounds and she requires three more cosmetic surgeries. Larson said he saw what happened and doubts it was a dog bite.
“She was kneeling down. She was hugging him. She has lots of rings on her hand. He moved quickly and I don’t know if her rings caught her face or what because she’s got some pretty wicked rings on her hands.”
“If my dog bit her, my dog bit her. But I can’t say 100 per cent. He’s never bitten anybody. He has no reason to bite anybody,” he said about Kooley, who is 17 months old.
Red Deer Rural RCMP did investigate the attack because the bite was to the face, but is not pursuing charges under the Dangerous Dogs Act.
O’Sullivan said she had petted the dog before and didn’t know why it attacked.
She plans to sue Larson in civil court and Larson is going to have her charged with trespassing.
Larson said people have been dumping clean fill on his Red Deer County property, which O’Sullivan had been doing since last year. But he said he asked her to stop four days before the incident because she got stuck on his property and ripped it up.
“It’s her fault. It’s no one else’s fault,” Larson said.
O’Sullivan denies she was banned from the property and she said she doesn’t wear rings.
“I do not wear one stick of jewelry. I never have. I used to do mechanics and I got into the habit of not wearing jewelry,” O’Sullivan said.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com