Tarentum dog-attack victim was pinned to her front door

Faith Valasek was setting up for trick-or-treaters on Thursday when she noticed two dogs walking toward her East Sixth Avenue house in Tarentum.

“I went up on my front porch to get a chair and I turned around there they were, at my feet,” said Valasek, 69.

“I love dogs. I started to say hello to them and went to tap the puppy on the head. Before I knew it, the adult pit bull was lunging at me.”

Valasek was one of three people attacked just before 6 p.m. in the area of East Sixth and Seventh avenues at lower Ormond Street.

Borough officials said three pit bulls, two adults and a puppy, got loose from a row house on Ormond at about 5:40 p.m., just before the borough’s Halloween celebrations were about to start.

Police have not released information on the dog owner other than to say she was taken into custody and charges are pending. As of Saturday afternoon, there were no criminal complaints filed at District Judge Carolyn Bengal’s office.

Michael Shutack, 60, was mauled near his home while trying to protect children from the three dogs. Shutack spent a night in the hospital and has bites to his face and arms.

Sean Flinn was attacked while trying to help rescue Shutack.

Police said none of the injuries were considered life-threatening.

Valasek was in good spirits Saturday but still nursing puncture wounds to both forearms. She is getting rabies shots because the dogs were not vaccinated, she said.

The harrowing experience has left her reeling.

“I was just screaming and the adult dog kept throwing me against the front door,” she said. “I couldn’t open the door. I couldn’t get away. It seemed like it was happening such a long time.”

Valasek shielded her face by crossing her arms in front of her body. The puppy, she said, was not vicious and didn’t jump or attack her.

“That black-and-white one, though, he was solid. His head was so big it was scary,” she said.

At one point, Valasek rang her own doorbell trying to get her husband’s attention.

“He didn’t know what was going on. He came out and stomped and scared them off,” Valasek said.

Officers killed one of the three dogs, while a second was captured by Hoffman’s Dog Kennels. Police did not say what happened to the third dog.

In the same home 48 years, Valasek said she never would’ve imagined a scenario like Thursday’s. An animal lover, she’s recovered lost dogs on her street and kept them on her porch until their owners retrieved them.

“The scariest part of it all is that 10 more minutes, and it would’ve been a kid,” she said.