Feel-Good Story Turns into a Dog Mauling that Doesn’t Feel So Good, After All

After a firefighter heroically rescued an Argentine mastiff named Gladiator Maximus from a frozen lake, the firefighter, the dog, and the dog’s owner all appeared on a local news telecast in Denver. During the program, the anchor woman — Kyle Dyer — begins petting and caressing the dog’s face gently while recounting the good deed. Then, as the segment ends, the anchorwoman leans forward as if to kiss the dog on the nose and the dog, doing what’s natural when a strange woman sticks her face in his, bites her on the lip. She was rushed to a hospital where she would need reconstructive surgery (to her credit, she kept it together on air).

Here’s the video. The suspense is worse than the actual attack.

The dog is currently being observed by animal control and is expected to be released if it shows no other irregular behavior. But here’s what ticks me off: The dog’s owner is being cited for not having the dog on a leash and for allowing his dog to bite. What? For allowing the dog to bite? The dog was on a show being held by the collar by its owner, and the anchor woman stupidly stuck her face near the mouth of a huge dog that she didn’t know, and the owner is being cited? The lesson here shouldn’t be, “Make sure your dog is wearing a leash on the set of a television news program that you’ve been invited to,” it should be, “Don’t put your damn pie hole near a giant dog’s mouth, you dimwit.”

Here’s the coverage from “The Today Show,” which doesn’t show the “mauling,” as apparently it’s too traumatic for the staffers of the Denver news station.