Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 3, 1993                   TAG: 9307030174
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LEIGH ALLEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

9-YEAR-OLD MAULED BY DOG

The girl, who was not identified by police, suffered a large gash on her shoulder and bite marks to her face and thigh, said Vinton animal control officer Lisa Wine. The injuries will require stiches and possible plastic surgery but are not life threatening, she said.

The girl, who is from Salem, was visiting relatives in Vinton.

"It was pretty bad," Wine said. "The wound to her shoulder is the worst but the ones to her face will need stiches, too." The girl was treated at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, she said.

Wine said the girl was walking along Raleigh Street when the dog came from behind a building, sank his teeth into her face and began shaking her.

Wine said the dog's owner, Pamela Six of Vinton, told her that "Coda" had bitten other people on three or four occasions. After the attack, Wine said Pamela's husband Steve Six, grabbed the dog and drove it to a relative's house in Salem.

Wine then went to Salem, picked up the dog and took it to the SPCA, where it will be held in quarantine until a judge decides its fate. She said Pamela Six will be charged with owning a vicious dog. That charge is a misdemeanor that will probably lead to the dog being destroyed.

Linda Oleksuk of the Akita Rescue Society of America said the dogs are not bred to be aggressive to humans and are no more dangerous than other large dogs.

"It's not so much the breed as how they're brought up, just as it is with Dobermans and Rottweilers," she said.

Oleksus said a common legend about the dogs is that they were used as temple guard dogs and as nannies. Peasant women in Japan would leave their Akitas at home to watch the children while they worked in the fields, she said.

Last summer, a Samoyed was put to death after it mauled a 4-year-old Roanoke girl. That dog had bitten a 3-year-old in 1990 but no charges were filed in that case.

In December of 1990, a 5-year-old Roanoke girl who was mauled by a neighbor's Rottweiler was awarded $325,000 from the dog owner's insurance company.

Police would not say whether the parents of the girl bitten Friday were considering legal action against the Sixes.

The Sixes could not be reached for comment Friday night.