WASHINGTON - A Northeast Washington woman is talking about her encounter with the pit bull that attacked her in an alley as she walked her 3-year-old daughter to day care.

Patrice Langley was bitten on her arm and stomach. She says she still worries about what her daughter saw.

"She seen me get attacked by a dog that was just about to attack her,' Langley said. 

Langley got out of the hospital late Tuesday night. On Wednesday, she walked back to the alley where she and her 3-year-old daughter Emoni came to face to face with a pit bull on their way to day care Tuesday morning.

"I'm scared. I don't want to walk this way anymore," Langley said. 

Residents say a family in an apartment on Webster street NE had been evicted the week before and someone tried to return one of family's pit bulls. But because no one was at home, that person allegedly tied the dog to a rope in the alley and left.

"That person needs to consider, very seriously consider turning themselves in," ANC Commissioner Gigi Ransom said. 

Police say how the dog got there and how it got loose is still under investigation. But when Langley and her daughter took their daily short cut, she says the dog snapped and broke free of its rope.

"I jumped in front of my daughter to protect her," Langley said.

She says the dog latched onto her arm. Langley, who's already afraid of dogs, says she found the courage to fight back and began punching the dog

"Something just clicked," she said.  "You have to do everything to get this dog off of you."

Unable to run back home because the dog was loose, Langley says she grabbed her daughter and ran toward a neighbor who had heard her screaming.

"I am yelling to her, 'Please just come and get my daughter," she recalled. 

Just as her daughter got to safety, Langley says the pit bull came back of nowhere and attacked her again, this time latching onto her stomach. Langley was able to break free.

Langley says she's thankful she and her daughter are safe.

"I was thankful that I got hurt and my daughter was fine," she said.

Animal Control officers later found the dog and left a notice for the dog's owner on the front door. As of 5 p.m., no one had come forward to claim the dog, ABC 7/NewsChannel 8's Jennifer Donelan reported.

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