LIVERMORE – When Tammy Sanborn looked in the window of her barn Wednesday morning after hearing a strange cry, she saw her children’s prize-winning goats stacked in a pile and covered in blood and a neighbor’s pit bull nearby.

“I told my son, Eddie, to get to the house. It’s the pit bull,” she said, still thinking there was only one.

It was the third time this year the family’s animals had been attacked by Peter A. Drown Jr.’s pit bulls and Rottweilers, Sanborn said.

As her 10-year-old son ran to the house on Botka Hill Road, she went to her neighbor to get help.

Eddie met his mother with her hunting gun, Sanborn said, the neighbor was close behind with a BB gun.

“I told Eddie to stay down front,” she said, as she went to the barn. “Eddie came out with his hunting gun, too.”

Sanborn walked to the side of the barn, not knowing if the dog was still in there. She discovered there were two brindle-colored pit bulls as they came out the window that one had broken to get into the barn. The dogs also chewed a hole in the wire fence in the pen and the side of the barn.

“One of the dogs was coming toward me, and I shot it, and then I shot the other one as it was going back toward the barn,” Sanborn said.

After the dogs died, she opened the barn door. There were no animals moving and the baby goat that had been crying stopped.

“I assumed all 11 goats were dead,” she said. “There was just so much blood on them, on the walls and floor. All the animals were coated in it.”

She called 911, then Turner veterinarian Dr. Becky Myers, friend and veteran goat-raiser Darlyne Antos, and Animal Control Officer Wayne Atwood.

Once they returned to the barn, they learned that some of their registered show goats were alive. Their necks and udders had been torn, some rear-ends, tops of their heads and legs eaten, Sanborn said.

Some goats started to move a little but didn’t get up. Some made little sounds, and they knew they were alive.

Dr. Myers treated the goats over several hours.

The two worst, Muffin and Mystery, died.

Eight-year-old Danny held his goat Muffin, whose throat had been ripped open, as she died in his arms after Myers gave it medicine to euthanize it.

“The saddest part was when he looked up and asked if she would be better when she wakes up,” Sanborn said.

Mystery was being leased to another 4-H club member to raise.

The surviving goats were put on antibiotics and pain medication.

On Thursday, the animals were doing better, though some still had not stood without help, others were depressed, and had their heads facing corners.

One of Anna Sanborn’s goats, Mona, had been failing and was put on a feeding tube.

“We had explained to her that her goat was going to die and she was heartbroken. She was crying hysterically,” Sanborn said.

“I’ve had her since she was a baby,” Anna, 13, said. She had delivered Mona’s babies this spring.

Mona made it and began eating some hay Friday.

“I think by giving her the feeding tube, it gave her a little bit of a boost,” Anna said. “Mona’s still not up and walking. I think the reason why Mona got it the worst is because she’s the mother hen.”

Sanborn’s husband, Gerald, has reinforced the fence and the barn and boarded up the windows.

“This has gotten out of hand, and we are carrying guns from the house to the barn,” Tammy Sanborn said.

After Drown’s dog attacked a goat in February, it had to be put down, and in August his dogs killed 13 chickens and two baby ducks, Sanborn said. A neighbor had rabbits and geese killed.

The backyard of Drown’s home at 137 Goding Road is near the Sanborns’ backyard.

Drown, 40, who was unable to be reached Friday, has paid more than $700 in fines since February in connection with his dogs.

Animal Control Officer Wayne Atwood said he issued Drown a summons Feb. 9 on a charge of being an owner or keeper of a dog injuring or killing livestock and having a dog running at large. A Lewiston court clerk said Drown paid $280 on that case.

On Aug. 6, Atwood said he issued four summonses to Drown on charges of being the owner or keeper of two dogs running at large and injuring or killing poultry and domestic rabbits. A court clerk said Drown paid $480 in that case.

The dogs Sanborn shot were Nova, a female pit bull who caused problems previously, and her puppy, Junior, Atwood said.

Atwood is working with the state Animal Welfare Service to determine the charges they will seek on Wednesday’s case.

Atwood said Drown admitted to owning the dogs who attacked the goats Wednesday.

“It looks like everybody is going to make it at this point,” Dr. Myers told the family Thursday after she checked the goats. The animals still need some medication.

“It was horrible,” Myers said of what she saw Wednesday. “The animals were in shock, and the people were in shock. It’s one of the worst cases I have seen.”

“At this point, it’s day by day,” Myers said. “I think it’s outrageous this happened in the first place.”

She said the parents are working hard to teach children values and show them some successes in the 4-H program.

“They don’t deserve to have their program devastated in this way,” Myers said.