Police still looking for pit bull that twice attacked 4-year-old boy

Wichita police and animal control officers are still searching for a brown and white pit bull that attacked a 4-year-old boy playing outside Monday afternoon.

The dog may be a stray. Sgt. Nikki Woodrow said Tuesday that authorities have talked to neighbors living in the area where the boy was bitten but no one knows where it belongs.

At one point, after animal control received some calls, “we thought maybe we found the dog. But it was not,” Woodrow said.

Police said Monday on Facebook that the 4-year-old was in the front yard of a home in the 2600 block of North Minnesota when the pit bull approached and started its assault at around 1:30 p.m. Monday. An adult noticed the commotion and came out of the house to stop the attack.

That’s when it lunged at the boy a second time, police have said. It’s unclear where the pit bull went after the attack.

The boy suffered more than 50 lacerations all over his body. At least two were serious. Woodrow said the boy was expected to spend about a day in the hospital.

Officers, Woodrow said, “worked for hours to try to find the pit bull. We have been unsuccessful in finding it to this point.”

Anyone who knows the dog’s location is asked to call 911. “We do believe that that dog is probably in that neighborhood, possibly abandoned,” Woodrow said, rather than belonging to a neighbor.

This story was originally published January 24, 2017 at 12:00 PM with the headline "Police still looking for pit bull that twice attacked 4-year-old boy."