"I have 25 bites and I have 15 stitches in all. They just kept biting me and they wouldn't stop," says 15 year old James Nowlin. Nowlin says while on his way to his cousin's house in his Saline County neighborhood, he saw two dogs running after him on a back road.
"When I saw them coming at me I was just scared. They were just growling and I could just hear the teeth snapping together and just the barking,” Nowlin remembers.
The dogs Nowlin says attacked him live a few houses down. The dog owner, Larry Coleman, didn't want to talk on camera but says he apologized to the Nowlins and offered to pay for any expense this caused. Coleman says he doesn’t know how the dogs got out and says he usually keeps them on a leash in the back yard.
There is a vicious dog ordinance in Saline County, but no animal control. It’s up to the sheriff's office to take action in these cases. The Nowlins want that changed and want more to be done to keep this from happening to another family.
"I'm going to do everything I can to have this leash law [and] animal control. If a dog kills another dog or bites a human I think it needs to be put away, if it's a vicious dog it doesn't need to be in the public," says James Nowlin, victim’s father.
The Saline County Sheriff’s Department says in this case they didn’t find it necessary to impound the dogs, but did issue a citation to the dog owners. No formal charges have been filed.
