Anaheim

Mother and 2-Year-Old Son Viciously Attacked by 2 Dogs in Front Yard

The boy will need surgery for the gash on his cheek and bites on his leg.

A mother and her 2-year-old son were viciously attacked by two dogs in their front yard in Anaheim this week. 

The home's surveillance cameras captured the attack, and footage shows the large dogs approach the toddler, named Grayson, as he walks out of his house ahead of his mother into their front yard.

At first the dogs appear to be friendly, but then suddenly they start biting Grayson.

"It was like a bad movie," said Spenser Bishop, the mother's husband and the boy's father. "It was surreal."

Bishop said the dogs got out through his neighbor's open gate on Tuesday.

Surveillance video shows the mother as she picks Grayson up and tries to hold him up away from the dogs while the dogs continue to attack her and try to bite the boy.

"They bit her hair and pulled it, and threw her around like a rag doll," Bishop said.

Later, the video shows another neighbor, 17-year-old Leslie Arias, come up to help them holding a stick.

Arias said she was in her room across the street when she heard a woman yelling for help. When the panicked yelling continued, she looked out her window and saw the dogs attacking the mother.

Arias said it was "heartbreaking" to see the dogs biting the boy, and said her only instinct was to "just help the boy and the mother."

"I grabbed anything that I saw to hit the dogs or something, and that was a metal stick," Arias said.

She stopped a garbage man to help, and another neighbor came out and grabbed one of the dogs. Arias called 911 and police and an ambulance were sent to the home, she said.

Although one of the dogs bit Arias, she said had the bite checked and was OK.

Grayson will need surgery for the large gash on his cheek and bites on his leg.

Although Bishop filed a police report with the Anaheim Police Department, Orange County Animal Care was investigating the attack Thursday.

After additional information is gathered about the attack during the investigation, a decision will be made whether or not to file a lawsuit, the family's attorney Richard Patterson said.

One of the dogs has been euthanized, Bishop and Patterson said. It was not immediately clear if the owners of the home owned both dogs. 

"People that have dogs like that really need to know that they're powerful animals," Bishop said.

NBC4 tried to speak with the neighbor who reportedly owns the dogs, but a woman who answered the door did not comment.

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