Indianapolis woman killed in dog attack
Introduction
Friday, August 2, 2024, a woman in Indianapolis was attacked and killed by two dogs that she was sitting for a friend at the friend’s home. According to the reporting, those two dogs have now been euthanized. Kimberly Williams, the 60-year-old victim had entered the yard where the dogs were being kept and was attacked by one or both of them and died at the scene according to police. Some of the reporting describes the dogs as terrier mixes and other reporting indicates they were pitbulls – I am going to go out on a limb and say there were definitely a pitbull mix of some type. So what went wrong?
Possible Reasons for Attack
It seems like all stories of pitbull attacks don’t have a clear trigger explaining why the dogs attacked. Many dogs, for example Doberman and Rottweilers, are highly protective and will guard their yards, houses, and people, but if you’re on your side of the street or welcomed into the home by their owners, they are 100% trustworthy. Pitbulls and pitbull mixes often aren’t. They have snap reactions to things (a baby crying, someone falling, being touched, etc.) that can often be fatal. The woman who was attacked was a dog groomer of 40 years so she knows dogs and would have known if there were signs leading up to the attack so that definitely makes me think either she fell and that triggered their prey drive and once pitbulls (or bulldogs) attack they don’t tend to stop until their victim is either dead or they are incapacitated.
The next thing that some of the reporting indicates is that the owner has had the dogs attack people before which is an extremely dangerous thing to teach a breed that has very little natural impulse control and a propensity for killing people even unprovoked. Unless you do bite work/police K9 handling of some type, that’s not something your dog should know. If you compete in dog sports and have the time resources for expert training, sure, feel free to do bite work with your dog but otherwise, never train or instruct your dog to attack someone.
Ways to prevent dog attacks
I dog sit and can directly speak to the fact that pitbulls and bulldogs, although they can be very sweet at times, lack impulse control and are not very smart. Why would you get this type of dog? The first way to prevent this type of attack is to not get these dog types.
Always rehearse these dogs seeing you with their owner in very contexts and in particular the context in which you will be watching them. So if you are dog sitting at their house, make sure they’ve seen you there before. Like I said, pitbulls are not bright. My Doberman can identify people he knows from the other side of the door before they come in and that’s even if they’ve never been to my house before – you don’t have that level of intellect with pitbulls for the most part so you have to be very clear in rehearsing these scenarios with them to habituate them to what is going to happen.
Use pepper spray generously. I’m a big advocate of carrying pepper spray since it is a non level but highly effective defense measure if you are being attacked by a dog. You can buy it anywhere:
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Conclusion
These types of things can happen to the best of us. Kimberly, the woman who was killed, seems like a great person and was very knowledgeable about dogs. Don’t get complacent. Even with 40 years of handling a high volume of dogs this happened to her so it can happen to you and you should be prepared for that.
To learn about our recommendations to survive a dog attack, click here.
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