The dogs' owner, Bruno Fernandes, will keep them at a property he owns in Springfield.
LUDLOW – Bruno Fernandes has agreed to voluntarily keep two of his dogs permanently out of town after they attacked a 7-year-old girl on Aug. 26.
The girl was attacked at 177 Lakeview Avenue outside her grandparents’ house, her mother, Lucy Ferreira, told selectmen Tuesday night.
Ferreira said her daughter, Madeleine, has to have rabies shots for four weeks because she was bit in the stomach and the dogs’ rabies shots had expired.
Bruno Fernandes said he kept the dogs, mixed breed boxer and Mastiff dogs, at his property at 190 Lakeview Avenue.
Residents on Lakeview Avenue had made more than 10 complaints about the dog in the last 13 months, Animal Control Officer Gilles Turcotte said.
Karen Cote of 149 Lakeview Avenue, said she has a seven-pound dog, and her dog would be “the lunch” of Fernandes’ dogs.
Other residents said there are many young children on the street and they should not have to live in fear.
Selectman Antonio Dos Santos said selectmen were asking for the voluntary removal of the dogs.
Any other dogs owned by Fernandes that are kept on the property must be either in the yard or on a leash, Dos Santos said.
“We don’t want to have to order any other dogs put down,” Dos Santos said.
Fernandes said he was agreeing to keep the dogs that attacked the 7-year-old girl, which are named Dora the Explorer and Princess, out of Ludlow voluntarily. He said he will keep the dogs on property he owns at 1213 Worcester St. in the Indian Orchard section of Springfield.
The dogs have been removed from Lakeview Avenue and will not be returned to Ludlow, Fernandes said.
Fernandes also has been fined $275 by the dog officer for letting a dog under quarantine run loose, for failing to keep the dogs up to date on their rabies vaccines and for letting a dog bite a child off his property.
The dog officer has placed one of the dogs in a pound, and the dog will not be returned to Fernandes until the fines are paid, Turcotte said.
The dogs each weigh about 75 pounds, Fernandes said.