On the afternoon of Jan. 1, Tim Ledbetter, 44, was walking with several of his basset hounds and two miniature dachshunds through a wooded area behind his Foxmoore Circle home.
Ledbetter breeds basset hounds in a kennel behind his home, about two miles east of Conway off Highway 64. He takes his dogs on walks through the woods whenever he can, he said. Usually he watches his dogs chase squirrels, rabbits and the occasional deer through the patch of wilderness, he said, but on this day it was their turn to be chased.
"We crossed a fence and walked to where there's like a big thicket in there," he said Friday. "Some of the dogs ran in there, chasing a deer, and then I heard what sounded to me like a dog fight."
It was a fight, Ledbetter saw through the bushes — a one-sided one. Four large wolflike creatures Ledbetter described as too heavily built to be coyotes and with hair too long and "woolly" to be wolves were "all over" one of the miniature dachshunds. He said he isn't sure what the animals were, but they weren't the sort of thing he'd expect to see so close to civilization.
"I can tell you it was something wild because it had fangs," he said. "It had, like, brownish/tannish woolly, woolly hair. I know it wasn't a coyote. Coyotes are different; they're lanky. This thing was not lanky. This thing was woolly and real big and stocky. I've looked on the internet and everywhere else I can think of, and I haven't found anything that looks like these things."
Ledbetter was able to use a large branch as a club to beat the animals off the dachshund long enough to pick the mortally wounded dog up. He tried to get himself and his dogs to safety, but three of the strange animals followed him.
"When I stood up they were snarling at me," he said. "They backed me up against the fence and knocked me down. I got bit numerous times; scratched and clawed. That's when one of my dogs jumped in an knocked them off me."
The dog that Ledbetter credits with saving his life is a basset hound he's had for about five years named Blue.
"Basset hounds aren't vicious dogs at all," he said. "My mom said I must have had somebody watching over me for a basset hound to jump into the middle of all that and save my life."
Bleeding and shaken up, Ledbetter was able to make it to his house. The injured dachshund, Rambo, survived long enough to be taken to a veterinarian, but had to be euthanized. Rambo, he said, had been a first anniversary present to his wife.
Ledbetter was treated for puncture wounds and scratches at Conway Regional Medical Center and is currently undergoing a round of rabies vaccinations. Blue, who came out of the attack with only a few scratches, has to quarantined in a separate pen in Ledbetter's yard for 15 days' observation in case the dog has contracted rabies.
"Blue's my new best friend, I'll tell you," he said. "When you raise a dog up and treat him right, they'll defend you no matter what. That's when you know you've got a good dog."
Ledbetter said he thinks he may have been attacked by wolf/dog hybrids. It is possible for wolves to breed with wild dogs, but Ledbetter said that after scouring the internet for "wolfdog" photos he hadn't found anything that looks like the creatures he saw that day.
Since the attack, Ledbetter said, the strange animals have been slinking around his backyard at night. He also hears them "howling or barking or yipping or whatever you'd call it."
"I'm an animal lover myself and I really wish the problem would just go away," he said, "but when they start threatening me, I've got every right to protect myself. I don't hate these wild animals because they're doing what they need to do to survive. There's a lot of subdivisions up here; a lot of stuff going in. They're forced to do something like this because it's destroying their habitat and their food supply. It's just like if somebody tore your house down. You'd have to find somewhere else to go."
Keith Stephens, assistant chief of communications for the Arkansas Game and Fish Association, advised anyone dealing with dangerous animals, wild or domestic, to "just be real careful."
"You can defend yourself, especially if you're being attacked," Stephens said, "but there's no need to go out and put yourself in a position to get hurt."
Stephens said the animals that attacked Ledbetter were likely feral domestic dogs. Over the last several years, he said, only a few wild animal attacks have been reported in Arkansas and he can't recall ever hearing of wolf/dog hybrids in the state.
"I'm not saying it couldn't happen," he said. "You never know what's out there."
Whatever it was that attacked him and killed his dog, Ledbetter said, they've got him "spooked."
"These blasted things are in my back yard," he said. "I'm not totally sure that if I go out into my back yard to feed my dogs that they won't attack me again.
"I don't know exactly what they are or what they're capable of. What concerns me is the people who live in this area's safety. Who's to say one of these stupid things might be desperate enough to come snooping around somebody's yard looking for a little dog or a cat and there's a 3-year-old kid out playing?..."
(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached by e-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1238. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)
