NORWICH, Conn. -- Tank, a 21-month-old pit bull, has been locked up at a Connecticut animal shelter after saving an 11-year-old girl from a rabid raccoon.
According to WTIC,the pup came to Savannah Vanese's aid while she was tending to chickens and found an intruder in the coop.
“All of a sudden my dog comes barking and sprinting under here and I look under and there’s this huge raccoon and I just didn’t know what to do. I just stood right here,” Savannah told WTIC.
Unfortunately, the raccoon Tank killed was diagnosed with rabies, and he has been quarantined at the Norwich Animal Shelter in case he caught the disease.
"Basically we’re waiting to see if he gets any symptoms because the only way to test him is to euthanize him, so we’re trying to avoid that step and give him his fair chance. It’s the least I could do for saving my daughter," Chris Vanase, Savannah’s dad, told WTIC.
Vanase said he's more than willing to pay for Tank's six-month quarantine, and his family is receiving precautionary rabies shots. Savannah can't visit her dog at the pound because she is a minor, so she's eagerly waiting for July.
“I was really just proud of him because it could have been fatal for me,” she said.
Tank hasn't had any symptoms of rabies yet, and an animal control officer tells WTIC that she's never had a dog in rabies quarantine end up infected.
