Pair of male pit bulls believed to be Spike and Zeus three months before killing a man.
DogsBite.org - During 2018, we sent out 10 public information requests to uncover unreported dog bite fatalities, as well as to gain more information on cases that did receive media coverage. There were a total of 36 deaths in 2018. Our requests uncovered two of these 36 deaths that otherwise were unreported, or in the case of a devastating family pit bull mauling in Henderson in May, was only reported as a second dog mauling death in Clark County, Nevada with no other details.
In October 2018, Susan Sweeney, 58-years old, was brutally killed by a mastiff-mix she adopted several days earlier from The Animal Foundation in Las Vegas -- the county seat of Clark County. Her death made national headlines. Yet, five months earlier, also in Clark County, a 62-year old man was viciously mauled and killed by a pair of male pit bulls adopted from the Henderson Animal Shelter eight months earlier. There were no media reports about his mauling death.1
Both fatal dog attacks that went unreported in 2018 involved a destructive attack by a family pit bull on the dog owner's parent.
On May 23, 2018, Henderson police were dispatched to a home on Shimmering Glen Avenue about 7:30 pm. Officers found the male victim "suffering from serious injuries to his throat, neck, face and other extremities," states the police report. Bradley Cline, 62, was transported to Sunrise Hospital for medical treatment. Police determined that four pit bulls resided in the home. Arriving officers observed "large pools of blood covering the entirety of the living room," states the report.
A witness said that Cline was attempting to take a female pit bull, named "Terror Vicious Cuddle Bugs," outside when a pair of male pit bulls, Spike and Zeus, attacked the female. When Cline intervened to stop the fight, both males attacked him. The attack lasted up to 20 minutes, states the report. Cline died of his injuries three days later. The male pit bulls' owner, Cline's son, told police he adopted Spike and Zeus on September 19, 2017 from the Henderson Animal Shelter.
The neutered, microchipped, gray and white pit bulls were about 1-year old at the time of the attack, states the report. Both dogs were euthanized. A February 17, 2018 Facebook post shows a family member had tried to rehome the pair of male sibling pit bulls because, "we can't keep them with our other pit bulls," she wrote. Three months later, in a grisly mauling of up to 20 minutes long, leaving "blood evidence on the walls, floors, furniture in the room," the dogs killed Cline.
The Clark County Coroner ruled the cause of death as "canine mauling" and the manner of death an accident. Our initial public information request was to the coroner to ensure that our records matched the number of dog bite-related deaths over a 6-year period (Jan 1, 2013 to Dec 31, 2018) in Clark County.2 We then requested and were able to obtain records from the Henderson Police Department about the May 26 dog mauling death of Cline and the outcome of the involved dogs.
Lastly, the police report also states, "It was learned that 4 pit bulls were currently in the house, secured in rooms, the garage, and the backyard." While details about the day-to-day housing of the dogs is unknown, we do know the pair of males could not be kept with the other pit bulls. Thus, a crate-and-rotate routine was needed in the multi-pit bull household to keep the dogs from fighting. A similar scenario, which did not prevent the fatal attack of a toddler, occurred in March.
View the DogsBite.org Google State Map: Nevada Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.2We do not include dog bite sepsis deaths in our fatality statistics, so we redacted that victim's name.
Related articles:
03/13/19: 2019 Dog Bite Fatality: Rescue Dogs Kill Toddler, Leave Grandmother with Traumatic...
10/12/18: 2018 Dog Bite Fatality: Pit Bull-Mix Attacks Two Family Members, Killing One...
10/09/18: 2018 Dog Bite Fatality: Recently Adopted Mastiff Kills Owner in Las Vegas, Nevada
Law enforcement departments across the United States should release consistent "baseline" information to the media and the public after each fatal dog mauling, including these items.
Something is NOT an ‘accident’ if it is foreseeable. Having FOUR pit bulls of both sexes, which are known to NOT get along in one house is about as far from an accidental mauling death as one can get. It’s a Darwin award of the first order. Glad it was the idiot who chose to ignore the obvious and not the grandkids or neighbors.
Agree!
It’s not an accident when the subject is doing exactly what it was created to do:
Attack unprovoked
Attack without first trying to avoid conflict
Attack prolonged
Do not stop attacking even if victim is submitting, dying.
Do not stop attacking even if suffering severe personal injury
Better a pitbull owner than an innocent person, I always say.
I’m going to go out on a limb and make a couple of guesses:
1. These people were probably bragging nonstop about how they RESCUED! these HOMELESS PETS! Which, in my not-so-humble opinion, is just another form of attention-seeking.
2. So, they had a total of four pit bulls at this house. And, if those dogs are anything like the trio of pit bulls that live next door to me, they are BARKERS. As in, they make the inside of my house sound like a kennel.
And, oh, yeah, I’m supposed to talk to my neighbors about the barking. Ummm, not going there. The dogs’ owners are, shall we say, not the most reputable of people.
So, I guess I’m supposed to just suck it up and put up with all of those sacred utterances from the almighty doGs.
This is working well for me. https://ultimatebarkcontrol.com/products
Does that really work? I could have used that a few years ago to stop my neighbor’s dog from incessantly barking between the hours of 10pm and 5am. It was terrible.
See the reviews on the site. It has a remote too so you can manually blast the barkomatics if the regular auto setting isn’t enough.
Yes, it does work (although I seldom use it because my cats are very disturbed by it.) Caveat, I’ve been fortunate to never need to use it when a pit bull was in the middle of an attack….I’m not sure that it would work on that, but for normal barking yes.
Here’s a good local example of victim blaming:
https://abc11.com/5243865/
Apparently they are “Yorkie terriers” and the neighbors must have been harassing them after they escaped their fortified chicken wire fencing.
Hmmm…. Looks like a pitbull, acts like a pitbull, must be a pitbull.
Screams with laughter. This is a Yorkshire terrier.
https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/yorkshire-terrier/
A tiny dog of no more than seven pounds.
I’ll have to give this woman credit though. Not the typical label of “Lab/Boxer mix” for these pit crosses. Or should I say, Yorkie “territ-tors,” as she put it.
I couldn’t stop laughing either.
I think she called them “Yorkie Territins” with emphasis and authority. What a crock. They are short-legged pit mixes.
We have a growing crisis with pitbulls in Las Vegas and Henderson which are two cities that have grown into one. I am a resident and personally know 3 people who were severely mauled by rescue pits in the last month. One is still in hospital, another had over 200 stitches, and the third will wear a colostomy bag as a souvenir of her disemboweling. The third was helping an elderly neighbor change lightbulbs when her newly adopted pit attacked. Why on earth would you give a pitbull to an old woman who lacks the strength and agility to screw in a lightbulb?
The malfeasance of the area shelters must be corrected.
No kill is for dogs only! They aren’t about no kill when it comes to people!
So the female was named “Terror Vicious Cuddle Bugs,”?
Wanna bet he told everyone that his “pibbles” “would lick you to death” multiple times?
It seems sick to me the way these people joke about how dangerous their dogs are. Joke is on him this time.