A young Fulton boy was attacked by a dog on a leash in the front yard of a Fulton home Saturday morning.
The owner of the dog, Don Beauchamp, 409 Canterberry Drive, said he will have his dog destroyed because he has three children and he doesn't want the dog around any longer.
Beauchamp said his dog never would have bitten the youngster if his dog had not been mauled by a pit bull dog roaming loose the night before.
Beauchamp said his mixed breed dog was chained on a leash in his front yard at 6:30 p.m. Friday night when it was attacked by a unleashed pit bull owned by the parents of the injured boy, who lives in an apartment on Miller Street.
"They just moved here a week or so ago and had a big pit bull dog that was running loose," Beauchamp said.
Beauchamp said after the pit bull dog attacked his mixed breed dog his children and their friends were screaming about the attack. Beauchamp said it took about a half hour for Fulton Police to arrive. He said after the dogs were separated, a Fulton policeman walked the pit bull back to the apartment building.
Beauchamp said the big pit bull dog had injured an ear of his mixed breed dog in the attack on Friday evening.
"I was told the pit bull is no longer in the city and he has been taken to someone out in the country," Beauchamp said.
Sgt. Holt of the Fulton Police Department said he could not release the name of the youngster who was bitten by the dog. The injuries of the youngster were not serious and Holt said he did not believe the youngster was hospitalized.
Holt said he was unaware of the previous dog fight on Friday night. He said it is illegal to have a dog running loose in Fulton without a leash. "We have a leash law," Holt said.
Beauchamp said when he put his dog out on a leash Saturday morning he warned his children not to go around his mixed breed dog because he had been injured in the dog fight the evening before.
But Beauchamp said for some reason the youngster whose parents owned the pitbull came into the front yard of his house and began to rub on the injured ear of his mixed breed dog.
"I was in the house at the time and I didn't know he was irritating my dog," Beauchamp said. "My dog bit him after he provoked him by rubbing on his injured ear. I'm having my dog put down, but as far as I know, nothing will be done to the pit bull dog that caused all of this by roaming loose and attacking my dog the night before."
It was the second recent incident of a person injured by dogs in Fulton. On March 2, a Fulton postman was injured severely when he was attacked by two pit bull dogs at 303 W. 14th St.