A jogger from Oakland, California defended herself from a dog attack using a pepper spray.
While she thought she foiled the canine, she still ended up with bite marks and bruises after the dog’s owner bit and punched her, too.
The attack happened on the Goldenrod Trail near the Oakland City Stables and the Chabot Equestrian Center at the Anthony Chabot Regional Park last Thursday.
Police arrested the dog’s owner, 19-year-old Alma Cadwalader, the next day after seeking the public’s help to track down the assailant.
The cops from the East Bay Regional Park District Police Department posted a video of the attack, which taken from the jogger’s cellphone, according to Inside Edition.
Lt. David Phulps told reporters that the victim’s bite marks were not dog bites but human teeth.
The fact that she was also physically assaulted led the police to consider that the dog owner caused a significant injury to another person thus the arrest.
Cadwalader was booked for battery and false imprisonment.
She was also charged with robbery because she apparently tried to take away the jogger’s pepper spray.
Her lawyer, Emily Dahm, however, said via KTVU that Cadwalader was only protecting her dog whose face has swelled up because of the pepper spray.
Dahm relayed that Cadwalader told the jogger to stop spraying her dog.
When she didn’t stop, Cadwalader had to wrestle the pepper spray away from her but the female jogger started grabbing her hair and kicker her groin.
So, Cadwalader ended up biting the jogger in the arm during the scuffle, the lawyer said.
The dog owner also punched the jogger so hard that she managed to seriously injure her.
The jogger immediately reported the incident to the police who were able to secure an arrest warrant from a judge.
However, Cadwalader was immediately released on bail since she had no prior criminal records.
She could be back in prison for six years, though, if she’s convicted.
Her lawyer, however, reiterated that Cadwalader acted on self-defense to protect her dog.
The defendant did not report the incident to the police because she had been too shocked and concerned for her dog’s condition.
The lawyer, therefore, is pushing to have the charges dropped since this is not a felony case.
In the meantime, Cadwalader has an arraignment to attend to in the coming days at a courthouse in Dublin.
But friends of the victim said that she’s the one who needed to defend herself.
They believe that she wouldn’t be attacking anyone unless she was in a dangerous situation.
The victim apparently works as a nurse and is an animal lover herself.
Reports revealed that Cadwalader was walking two dogs without their leashes in the park, as it was the rule.
The Anthony Chabot Regional Park is known as a dog-friendly sanctuary and has an off-leash area.
But one dog ran up to the jogger, which the police said tried to attack the victim so she was forced to take out her pepper spray.
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