A young girl was rushed to the hospital Wednesday night after her family's pit bull bit her inside a home in northwest Miami-Dade, and the dog itself remains missing after deputies tried to stop it with a Taser and it got away. Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office deputies and Fire Rescue units swarmed the 1700 block of Northwest 66th Street following the attack, but by late that night, both the girl's condition and the dog's whereabouts were still unknown.
Deputies Tase Dog, But It Gets Away
The girl was bitten by her family's American pit bull, and according to WSVN, she was bleeding heavily from her arm, per an area resident who said they witnessed the attack from a window. She was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, though her condition remained unclear as of late Wednesday night. When deputies arrived at the scene, the station reports that the pit bull approached them, forcing deputies to deploy a Taser in an effort to prevent another attack. The dog was not struck and fled the scene, and its location remained unclear afterward, though cameras reportedly captured a dog resembling the pit bull wandering the street near the home.
The dog's owner told the outlet she arrived home to find out the dog had bitten the child, and said she had no idea what triggered the animal. She described her dog as usually friendly, playful and good with small children, telling the station, “She's usually a friendly, playful dog. Doesn't really bite people like that.” The owner also said she had heard police tased the dog and did not know where it ended up.
What Florida Law Says About Dangerous Dogs
Under Florida Statute § 767.11, a dog can be classified as dangerous if it has aggressively bitten, attacked, endangered or inflicted severe injury on a person on public or private property. The statute defines severe injury as one resulting in broken bones, multiple bites, or disfiguring lacerations requiring sutures or reconstructive surgery. Separately, Florida law holds that a dog's owner is liable for damages when the animal bites someone lawfully on public or private property, including the owner's own property, regardless of whether the dog had shown prior viciousness or whether the owner knew about it.
State law also requires an animal-control authority to investigate reported incidents involving a dog that may be dangerous, and where possible to interview the owner and obtain a sworn affidavit from anyone seeking that classification. If an owner is aware of a dog's dangerous tendencies, the law requires the animal be securely confined in a proper enclosure — defined as an indoor space or a securely locked pen or structure built to keep young children out and the dog in. Miami-Dade Animal Services did not respond to a request for comment from the station Wednesday night, and it remains unclear whether any dangerous-dog classification process has been initiated in this case.
Part of a String of Recent Attacks
This is not an isolated incident in Miami-Dade this fall. On Sept. 17, four dogs described as terrier mixes attacked 30-year-old Ashley Perez while she walked near Northwest 145th Street and 11th Court in Biscayne Gardens, according to the Miami Herald. The dogs had escaped from a nearby yard, latched onto her arms and legs, and pulled her to the ground. Deputies who tried to return the animals to their yard were lunged at, and one deputy fired shots that missed; all four dogs were later captured and humanely euthanized while Miami-Dade Animal Services investigated their owner. Perez was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital in critical condition and released a few days later.
That same night, the Miami Herald separately reported that several dogs attacked an unnamed woman outside another northwest Miami-Dade home, also leaving her in critical condition. A week before that, a 63-year-old woman was badly bitten by two dogs in Homestead and taken to Jackson South Medical Center, the paper reported. County data released in 2024 noted that Miami-Dade had logged 253 reported dog bites to humans that year, against a national estimate of roughly 4.5 million dog bites annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures cited in that release.
Miami-Dade guidance urges anyone bitten by a dog or cat to seek immediate medical attention and refer the case to the Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County. For now, the fate of the pit bull involved in Wednesday's attack remains unknown, and so does the full extent of the young girl's injuries.
