Chicago police are investigating after a woman said someone pepper-sprayed her two dogs through a fence on the city’s Northwest Side.
The owner of the two dogs told NBC 5 she is sad and angry after what happened to them over the weekend.
"I think more than upsetting,” she said. "It’s just really sad because my son got to see it, and he was just so confused as to why somebody would do that to our dogs.”
The owner, who didn’t want to be identified, lives in the Portage Park neighborhood on the border of Harwood Heights and Chicago. She said her dogs, Scooby and Shaggy, were playing in the family’s fenced-in yard when they were pepper-sprayed.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter here.
"I just don’t see why another human being that’s not being attacked, their dog is not being attacked [would do this]. Like what prompted them to do this to them?" she said.
Her Ring camera captured the incident late Saturday afternoon. Video shows a woman walking her dog on the sidewalk near Dunham Park. She stops at the family’s fence, then seconds later can be seen spraying something through the cracks of the fence, causing the dog to jump.
“Shaggy, he’s the one that got pepper-sprayed the most,” she said. “He was very quiet and scared, and he went right inside his crate after he came inside the house and wouldn’t come out of his crate.”
Local
The owner went outside to check after hearing the commotion and said her fence had a chemical smell. Her husband, after checking the camera, got in his car and was able to track down the woman.
“He asked her nicely, why did she pepper-spray them, and she said she didn’t when we had just seen her do it on the camera,” she said. “He asked her once more time, 'Are you sure you did not pepper spray my dogs' and she just said, 'No I did not' and she just started jogging away.”
Her husband snapped a picture of the woman and the family filed a police report. NBC 5 is not showing the woman’s face because she hasn’t been charged with a crime. Neighbors said they have seen the woman in the area before walking her Doberman. The owner said she doesn’t know the woman.
“[My dogs] were never aggressive towards her. I feel like her dog didn’t even pay attention. He was quiet on the other side. I never heard another dog bark or anything,” she said. “So I don’t know if she’s walked by my gate before and maybe she’s bothered by their barks, but that’s something you can’t stop.”
The owner rescued Scooby and Shaggy last March during the pandemic and said they have brought her family so much joy. She just hopes this doesn’t happen again.
“I feel like I couldn’t do nothing to make it better and it made me feel worse, you know, because in that moment you wished you could take their pain away,” she said.
The owner said her dogs were checked and they’re going to be OK. Police said the woman was last seen wearing a green shirt, black leggings and gray gym shoes.
