CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A vicious dog attack left a family pet dead and sent a man to the hospital.
The man’s daughter says her Yorkie was killed at her apartment complex on Courtside Lane in south Charlotte on Monday.
Now, another neighbor says the same dog had attacked her pet just days prior to the incident.
The victim in the latest case said her father was walking her little Yorkie around the apartment when a much bigger dog broke free from the dog park and started attacking.
“We were carrying a dead dog in our hands,” said Berenice Cruz, the owner of the Yorkie.
Cruz said her 5-year-old Yorkie weighed about five pounds. She tells NBC Charlotte the other dog was a Rhodesian Ridgeback, which she estimates weighed about 90 pounds.
“The dog just broke the door from the dog park and went straight to my dog in the neck, and then my dad tried to push him away and that’s when he gotten bitten on the hand,” Cruz said.
Her 64-year-old father was hospitalized after being bitten on the hand. Meanwhile, another neighbor tells NBC Charlotte the same aggressive dog attacked her dog at the apartment complex just days earlier.
Now, she’s worried it will return again.
“We are so scared about that,” said neighbor Fernanda Munhoz.
“If that dog comes back, and I hope to God no, it’s going to get a kid,” said another neighbor.
Cruz is now grieving the loss of what feels like a family member.
“We’ve been crying all night, this is a puppy I actually bought [when] I was working minimum wage and I always wanted this dog,” Cruz said.
NBC Charlotte reached out to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and Charlotte Mecklenburg Animal Care and Control but so far, there's no word on what happened to the dog involved in the attack.
No charges have been filed at this point.