Scott Radley: Hamilton city councillor recovering from dog attack

One minute, Coun. Esther Pauls was enjoying a relaxing weekend bike ride. The next, she was trying to escape from two large dogs that were biting her multiple times, leaving her bloodied and badly shaken.

They just attacked me," she says. It was so fast I couldn't believe it."

It was just after 4 on Saturday afternoon that the Ward 7 councillor and her executive assistant, Zora Milovanov, were in the home stretch of a 40-kilometre ride which is something they do to clear their heads and get some exercise.

As they rode along Chippewa Road between the airport and Binbrook, Pauls noticed what she initially thought were two bears running toward her. In the moment, the dogs - the city's animal services department will only say they were large breed" - appeared that big.

They were huge," she says.

She immediately tried to speed up to get away from them, but within an instant they'd caught up and one had latched onto her left ankle. The other sunk its teeth into her right calf. She says the fact it was cold outside and she was wearing three layers likely saved her legs from truly serious damage. Even so, it felt like the muscle was being ripped right off.

Watching all this from a little ways back was Milovanov, who saw everything while hearing her friend's terrified screams. There's no exaggeration in her boss's story, she says.

It was like being in a horror show."

As she caught up - she'd been riding a little slower - Milovanov frantically began looking for a branch or something else to use to get the dogs away but there was nothing. It left her helpless, which was a grim feeling.

A man who happened to be nearby (they initially thought he was the dogs' owner but that turned out not to be the case) quietly began instructing Pauls to stop rather than trying to outrace them. They'll keep attacking if she keeps moving, he said.

Fighting her instinct to continue trying to flee, she listened to him. Sure enough, the dogs released. But rather than leave, they kept circling around her while growling. Both women say this went on for close to a minute.

She was just distraught," Milovanov says. I was terrified myself."

When the dogs finally walked away, the man called 911 as Pauls lay in the ditch, scared by what had happened and panicked they'd return. In time, an ambulance took her to hospital, while police and animal services dealt with the dogs.

She required a number of stitches to close what the police report describes as deep bite marks."

The councillor says she was initially reluctant to talk about what happened because she doesn't want people thinking she hates dogs. She doesn't, even though she was been bitten by a Rottweiler 20 years ago while on a training run for a triathlon and has been somewhat fearful of big ones ever since.

Now she worries she'll never be able to bring herself to ride in the country again.

I love going out there but I'm so afraid now," she says. All the time I think about it."

In an email, animal services acting supervisor Sue Russell says the dogs' owner has been charged under the responsible animal ownership bylaw. The two animals are under mandatory quarantine.

How they got loose remains under investigation.

While the particulars of this case may be somewhat unique, Russell writes that the story is hardly rare.

Animal services investigates dog bite matters on a regular basis," she says.

While Pauls says she's already feeling better, she knows this could've ended far worse. Had she been jogging and not elevated on a bicycle they might've bitten more than her legs. Had she been wearing shorts, it could've been really bad.

Above everything else, there's one thought she says she can't get out of her mind. What if it hadn't been her who crossed those dogs' path on Saturday?

Can you imagine if it was a little kid?"

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com