Yorkie owner shoots, kills pit bull after it mauls his dog to death

MCDONOUGH, Ga. — A Georgia man says a neighbor's pit bull attacked his 7-year-old Yorkie and killed it Sunday morning.

Emir Williams told WSB he was walking his dog in McDonough, Georgia, when the pit bull suddenly ran up and latched onto the smaller dog. The man tried to separate them.

“I’m trying to pry my dog loose, because he already locked his jaw,” Williams said. “I could not get his jaw loose.”

Williams said the pit bull put the Yorkie in its mouth and wouldn’t let go.

>> Read more trending news

“The pit bull, he’s pretty much on top of me and I have my right hand around the neck of the pit bull,” he said.

Williams said he went inside his house to get his gun and he shot the pit bull twice to get him to let go of his dog.

"When (the dog) came up beside me after being shot twice, I realized that I had to just give him a kill shot, which I thought I did the first two times,” he said.

Williams said his dog was dead but he killed the pit bull because he feared it would attack again.

Other neighbors have also filed complaints about the pit bull, according to WSB.

“This is not a case of a negligent owner, this is not a case of a vicious dog,” Izell Granville, the owner of the pit bull that was shot dead, told WSB. Granville said he bought the dog, named Champ five years ago for his son.

Granville said Champ escaped from his family's backyard and Williams killed the dog in front of children.

“It’s understandable for him to be mad, but we still have to have some type of restraint,” Granville said.

Williams said it was tough burying his Yorkie, but he says its death may have saved a life.

“It would just have been a matter of time before that same pit bull would have grabbed hold of a child,” Williams said.

Henry County Animal Care & Control never responded to the scene because they weren't aware exactly what happened, according to WSB. When the station contacted them Monday, the organization cited the pet sitters with public nuisance and failure to restrain the animal.

Cox Media Group