I love every dog, including the small, scrappy, senior ones who never got a say in the danger that showed up in their own backyard.
That's what happened to Lucy, a senior chihuahua mix in Livonia, Michigan. Just before the Fourth of July weekend, Lucy was in her family's yard, likely sniffing along the fence line, when a large black-and-white dog got to her. Her littermate, Yuki, howled loud enough to bring the family running, but the damage was already done. Lucy suffered a crushed snout with a broken bone, lost vision in one eye, lost all of her front teeth, and had a collapsed nasal cavity that required breathing tubes just to keep her alive. She spent four days in emergency care and underwent multiple surgeries. Her family's vet bills have topped $15,000.
Surveillance video from nearby Hubbard Street shows a woman struggling to control a large dog around the time of the attack, but that owner has not come forward, and the dog has not been identified. Lucy's family isn't asking for revenge. Her owner, Jamie Lee, put it simply: "I'm still willing to give her grace, I just think you should do the right thing." She just wants the owner to be found and held responsibly accountable, and she wants Livonia to make sure this doesn't happen to another dog in another yard.
I'm asking the Livonia Police Department and Livonia Animal Control to make identifying this dog and its owner an active priority, to follow up on every tip from neighbors and mail carriers who spotted the dog, and to hold the owner accountable under Michigan's dangerous animal and leash laws once found. A 15-pound senior dog nearly died in her own yard. The community deserves to know this is being taken seriously.
Please sign to ask Livonia officials to find Lucy's attacker's owner and hold them accountable.
