Hampstead residents upset after dog attack

A 3-year-old Rottweiler named Enigma will lose either his home or his life.

His owner, Linda Wrobleski, said she will move. Enigma's latest victim, a 9-year-old golden retriever named Sam, rests at home, covered with nasty bites.

So ends a week when residents of Century Street in Hampstead have felt terrorized by the specter of a vicious dog.

Beverly Haugh said she and the 70-pound Sam were standing in their yard in the 800 block of Century St. about 9:30 a.m. Aug. 10 when Enigma and a yellow Labrador approached. Before she could react, Haugh said, the Rottweiler pounced on Sam and began biting his hips and hind legs. Haugh grabbed a stick and began whipping Enigma and screaming. After a few moments, he left, she said, but not before Sam suffered severe deep bites.

She and her husband, Barry, took Sam to a veterinarian where he was patched up for $341. They reported the attack to county animal control. An officer there told them the county had received a complaint about the Rottweiler attacking a neighborhood dog.

The Haughs spent the weekend talking to neighbors and heard two other attack stories. They collected 17 signatures on a letter asking for Enigma's removal from the neighborhood.

Removing a dog is not that simple, however, said Nicky Ratliff, director of the county's humane society and animal control office.

Because Enigma hadn't attacked a person, Ratliff said, the best the county could do was have him declared vicious. That meant Wrobleski would have to keep him inside, outside in a locked kennel or on a leash controlled by a person age 16 or older. She would have to muzzle him whenever taking him off her property.

The Haughs said they understood the legal limitations animal control faced. "But I won't feel safe until the dog is out of the neighborhood," Beverly Haugh said Monday.

"It's a pretty lousy situation," Barry Haugh said.

Monday night, landlord Steven Wolinski told Wrobleski that Enigma and her other dog, a 5-year-old Shar-Pei, would have to go or she would have to go. She has grappled with her options since.

She agreed to pay Sam's medical bill, and said she definitely will move rather than give up the Shar-Pei, but she hasn't decided Enigma's fate. She'll try to find someone to take him, but if she can't, he might have to be put to sleep.