Lillian Giu was walking her dog along her usual route when she was attacked and bitten by an unleashed labradoodle in a neighborhood a couple of blocks from Mercer Island High School on Thursday, June 21. The victim’s dog, a 20-pound poodle-terrier mix, was also attacked.

The labradoodle had been playing with a young girl in a yard in the 4100 block of 93rd Avenue S.E., before it charged Giu and her dog, Mikey. The girl’s shouting for the lab to stop went unheeded. Neighbors who heard Giu screaming immediately responded and helped to fend off the attacking dog. By the time it was all over, Giu remembers at least five to seven people came to the rescue.

A police officer and an aid unit responded.

Giu sustained injuries to her face, neck, arms and feet while trying to protect her little dog, but decided not to receive stitches in the emergency room because she would be leaving town in two days.

“I thought, I can just tough it out,” Giu said. Her dog, however, had to have five stitches at an emergency animal hospital.

“I walk in the same neighborhood,” Giu said. “Now I can’t anymore; it’s just so scary.”