Police are investigating an allegation that a pit bull roamed onto private property, attacked a 5-pound Chihuahua named “Peanut” and carried it off in its jaws.

The incident happened Tuesday evening near Sixth Street and Kasold Drive. As of Thursday night, the year-old Chihuahua had not been recovered.

“We’re looking everywhere in the whole neighborhood,” said owner Ellea Fellers, who lives in the 700 block of Joseph Drive. “She was so sweet and nice.”

Fellers said that about 6 p.m. Thursday she heard a noise in her unfenced back yard that sounded like a dog attack. She ran outside to discover her Peanut was gone.

About that time, a neighbor who was mowing his lawn saw a pit bull run past carrying another animal in its mouth.

Lawrence Police responded and have identified the pit bull’s owner as a 27-year-old Lawrence man. But as of Thursday, the pit bull had not been impounded, said Sgt. Mike Pattrick, a police spokesman. He said police were preparing a report to be submitted to the city prosecutor’s office for possible citations.

Fellers said Peanut was “like a mom” to the family’s second Chihuahua, 3-month-old Cookie. Fellers said she hadn’t been able to sleep the past two nights and that her 8-year-old son had been crying at night.

Under city code, a dog that attacks another animal can be declared a “dangerous dog” after a hearing. The label requires the dog to be registered with the Lawrence Humane Society, tracked by an implanted microchip, and kept in a locked enclosure.

City code says that if police have probable cause to believe a dog is dangerous, they can order it to be impounded pending the outcome of the hearing. But Ellea Fellers’ husband, Tom, said city officials have told him they couldn’t do that.

In July 2003, a pit bull living in the 700 block of Lyon Street in North Lawrence was declared a dangerous dog after it attacked and injured a Yorkshire terrier named “Stormin’ Norman.”