Dog, owner bitten in Bankers Hill raccoon attack

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - A Bankers Hill dog owner is recounting a scary encounter with a raccoon that left her and her dog with bites.

Eight days later, reminders linger on Jessica Chranowski's hand, and the body of her 6-year-old dog, Sonnie, of a dog walk turned nightmare.

It happened two Sundays ago, around 8 p.m., outside her apartment complex in Bankers Hill.

As Chranowski walked some three relatives to their car, Jessica came face to face with a large raccoon at the top of the stairs leading to the apartment complex deck.

“Sonnie starts dragging me, stops at the bottom of the stairs and looks up,” said Chranowski. “It's arching its back, hissing at us … It went into attack mode and charged down the stairs. I thought I heard it screaming but now that I think about it, it could have been me screaming.”

Chranowski says the raccoon lunged after her Sonnie, a Jack Russell mix.

“I kicked it. I went to grab my dog. That’s when it bit my hand,” said Chranowski.

At one point, Chranowsky fell down. Her 14-year-old cousin tried hitting the raccoon with a bag of clothes.

For the next minute or so, there was a showdown in the parking lot. Her family members, including an elderly aunt, continued to swipe at the raccoon with bags of clothes and the raccoon continued to be aggressive.

“It kept lunging at us, over and over,” said Chranowski.

Finally, the raccoon ran off, leaving Sonnie with a body full of claw marks and bites. Thankfully, most of them were superficial.

Chrawnowski endured painful rabies shots at two hospitals. Staffers at each told her they've seen three or four raccoon bites in the past month. A spokesperson for one of the hospitals, Kaiser Permanente, believes there have been four or five cases in the past six months.

“As far as undomesticated animals go, raccoons are probably the most common bites,” said Chief of Urgent Care Dr. Christian LaRoe.

Experts say raccoons can become aggressive if they are cornered or protecting food or babies. Humane Society officers searched the area but found nothing.

“This was very traumatizing…If you see a raccoon, just go the other way. This was terrifying,” said Chranowski.

State Fish and Wildlife officials say they haven't seen an uptick in raccoon bites.

The Humane Society says loud sounds, like an air horn, can be used to scare off raccoons.