Tragic dog attack near homeless tents forces woman out of Seattle

Jennifer lives in Seattle’s Pioneer Square with her wife and dog. They used to have two dogs, but that changed recently after a dog attack.

Though the incident is tragic, it is merely the last straw for Jennifer and her family. She was walking her two dogs, Colby and Hampton, when another dog — that wasn’t on a leash — from a homeless encampment ran across Second Avenue, dodged a car and attacked them. Colby, a Parsons Russell Terrier, took the worst of the attack.

Homeless tents set up on kids play field — no one will move them

“It ultimately crushed Colby and attacked him,” Jennifer told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “It was around 8:30 in the morning, multiple people around there, around the tunnel loitering among the tents, ran across to try to remove the pit bull from attacking Colby. One of the individuals drew a knife.”

“The only people concerned were those loitering in the tent, who tried to remove the pit bull and usher it on the nearest Metro bus to get it out of there,” she said. “The police could not locate it.”

Colby was eventually rushed to a vet after the dog attack. What ultimately took the little dog’s life was not the attack itself, rather, the dog from the tent passed an infection to Colby. That infection was eating away at the dog’s organs.

Jennifer has dodged tents, needles, human waste and more in recent years. And she put up with it. But the dog attack is too heartbreaking for her. In her opinion, the city continuing to allow people to camp on the streets has led to the environment that caused the dog attack.

“It’s not fair for these tents to be on playgrounds,” Jennifer said. “It’s not fair for my wife and I to pay rent to look out on, and walk through tents, and walk through their trash, and needles they leave behind … they are urinating and leaving their feces behind for us to walk through.”

“This has broke me to the core. This has broke me to the core,” she said. “We are doing our last minute errands and we are leaving the state. We’re moving. I’m heartbroken. We cannot stay here. This state has given me 7 years of happiness with my boy, my Colby. We’re leaving.”

Jennifer said she hasn’t explained her move to her work or friends, but she cannot live in Seattle any longer with the way things are.

“I can’t live here and not feel safe,” she said. “Nobody is safe on these streets with these tents. It’s not OK. It’s not OK.”

Listen to Jennifer’s full account of the dog attack below

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