FARMINGTON – A newspaper carrier is recovering from dog bites to the back of his thigh and left foot. It took six or seven stitches to close the wound on the back of Brian Hurley’s thigh.
It is the second time the dog has bitten someone in the last couple of years.
Jingle, a mixed-breed dog who had been chained inside a Court Street porch, attacked Hurley on Sunday morning, and is now under 10-day quarantine, Animal Control Officer Wayne Atwood said.
The dog is allowed out only on a leash, with supervision, to relieve himself.
Atwood has also given the owner, Andrea Keirstead, some suggestions to prevent a similar incident from happening again, including making sure the porch door shuts tight and locks, he said.
Keirstead’s mother, Jane Keirstead, said her daughter has been trying to contact Hurley, a Farmington father of three, to pay his medical bills.
Jane Keirstead said she was the one who had just hitched the dog to a chain inside the enclosed porch of the 129 Court St. home Sunday morning when Hurley came to deliver the Sun Journal.
She said she told Hurley to put the paper on the landing, which he did, and he was walking back to his vehicle when the chained dog burst out through the door.
“It was a horrible, horrible thing,” Keirstead said of the incident.
She admitted that the dog – which was adopted from a shelter and is believed to be a border collie-great Dane mix – had bitten someone a couple years ago.
Hurley said he was running a little late Sunday because his van became stuck at one of his customers’ homes.
Hurley confirmed he was walking toward his van when the dog clamped onto his right thigh.
With the dog latched to his leg, Hurley fell to the ground, he said.
The dog let go, then clamped onto his left foot, piercing his skin beneath his shoe.
He has an abrasion there, he said.
Hurley said he has a wound as big as a 50-cent piece, about three-quarters of an inch deep, on the back of his thigh.
Hurley said he stayed on the ground for about 15 minutes until he could get away from the dog.
The dog was yelping and barking and Keirstead, a senior citizen, continued to call out for the dog to stop, Hurley said, but she wasn’t able to restrain him.
Hurley, 32, a college student studying architecture at the University of Maine at Augusta, is getting around on crutches and has been told by a doctor to rest in bed for two weeks.
He is also taking antibiotics and pain medication.
Anne Geller, a Farmington resident, said she was bitten by the dog in November 2003. She said a woman was walking the dog in the yard, but the dog’s leash was dragging on the ground.
The dog ran across the street and bit her on the rear and leg, Geller said, and she had to get a tetanus shot.
After Sunday’s attack, Geller said she is worried about walking in her own neighborhood because of the dog.
Atwood said that the dog was quarantined on both occasions.
He added that if the dog had been at large, he could pursue a dangerous dog complaint.
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