Our sweet Ellie Grace was attacked by a pitbull at a pet friendly store on Saturday August 16th. She never gave up and fought for her life. She has had two life saving surgeries to fix her lower jaw that was fractured on both sides. Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of meeting Ellie knows that she is the sweetest, most affectionate love bug. She didn’t deserve this and this was 100% preventable. 

The pitbull that attacked her was classified by the humane society as extremely dangerous and was not fit to be around any other animals. The owner, who adopted her just 12 hours before the attack had to go through counseling and sign paperwork acknowledging this information. Yet the next morning, he had this dog in a store with many other dogs. He came up from behind us and seconds later, our sweet girl was being torn apart. Ellie’s dad, Dillon, had his hand in the dog’s mouth trying to get it to release its grip and got bit as well in the process. This act saved Ellie’s life. 

Ellie is only 4 years old and has so much more life to live. She has been such a strong and resilient little girl. When visiting her in the hospital and now that she is home she has stayed her normal happy self and immediately snuggles into our arms for comfort. The hardest part is behind us but we now have mounds of medical bills and months of hard recovery.

Dillon also had to seek medical attention for deep puncture wounds to his hand from the teeth of the pitbull. He is in the process of healing. 

Please help us give our girl her life back. Any donation will be so appreciated and all money will go towards Ellie’s vet bills for the injuries sustained in this attack. 

This traumatic experience has been so eye opening for us. We have discovered a giant hole in the current system set up in place for the process of dogs getting adopted out of the humane societies in Maine. There is also a huge disconnect between animal control officer’s reports of prior incidents that could make a huge difference in keeping people, children and animals safe. Any additional donations would go towards advocation to help prevent senseless and preventable incidents like this happening in the future. 

All the love and thanks,

Hannah & Dillon Appie