Pit bulls attack, kill restrained Labrador

Lancelot was a big part of Rebecca Goodin’s family – the 12-year-old dog was the family’s protector while her son and three daughters were growing up.

Now Lancelot, a 100-pound brown Labrador retriever, is dead, the victim of a mauling by two pit bulls that jumped a fence into the Goodin family’s back yard in eastern Lawrence.

It has Goodin wondering why people would keep such dogs as pets – and what might have happened if a child had been in their path Monday morning.

“I just think pit bulls are too dangerous to have in town where they can get out,” Goodin said Tuesday afternoon.

On Monday, the two dogs apparently escaped from their home on Cadet Avenue and headed east across the city’s Memorial Park Cemetery to the 1600 block of Harper Street.

About 11:30 a.m., neighbors saw them fighting in the Goodins’ back yard with Lancelot. The Labrador was tied up to his dog house.

The neighbors chased the pit bulls away and contacted animal control officers, but it was too late.

Goodin said she was called about the dog’s injuries and raced home from her teaching job at Basehor-Linwood Middle School.

This pit bull is one of two dogs that jumped the fence at their East Lawrence house and mauled a 12-year-old Labrador that was tied up in its back yard. The attack happened Monday and the Lab died from injuries in the attack. The two pit bulls are now at the Lawrence Humane Society.

Lancelot was rushed to Bradley Animal Hospital. The dog had suffered numerous puncture wounds and was in shock. He died about three hours later.

“I have a 10-year-old (daughter), and we haven’t even told her that’s how the dog died, because that would be too much for her to take,” Goodin said. She said her other daughters, age 13 and 16, “were just devastated.”

“My 16-year-old daughter couldn’t even go to school today, because she had to sit with him for 20 minutes while he’s laying there, all chewed up and bleeding, while they’re waiting for the animal control people to come and take him to the vet,” Goodin said.

Goodin’s mother, Patricia Edgerton, said such dogs were like loaded weapons.

“It’s just like having a gun in the house, having two killer dogs,” she said.

Lancelot

Sgt. Doug Bell of the Lawrence Police Department’s animal control division said the two pit bulls were being held at Ise Memorial Shelter, which is run by the Lawrence Humane Society.

Bell said charges were pending against the dogs’ owners under the city’s dangerous dog ordinance, but he declined to identify them.

“We had trouble with these dogs before,” said Midge Grinstead, executive director of the Lawrence Humane Society. She said the two pit bulls had been brought in twice by the city’s animal control officer.

“One time they were fighting each other and tore each other up pretty well,” she said.

For the Goodin family, the death was the second major blow this year. Goodin’s husband, Carl, 42, died of a heart attack in March.