BARTOW COUNTY, Ga. - Anyone who's a dog lover can certainly understand and appreciate this story.
Deborah Howell of Adairsville believes her small Miniature Rat Terrier named Molly may have saved her life.
"I started getting phone calls saying, 'Deborah, I'm watching you'," she told 11 Alive News on Tuesday.
She still isn't sure if those threatening, anonymous calls that began
a month ago are related, but she says a strange man physically attacked
her last Friday night as she opened her back door to let her little dog
in the house.
"He grabbed me by the top of my hair, just by the top of my hair, the
head, and he started yanking my head and was shoving it into the door
frame," Howell said.
She still has bruises on her face and forehead, but she believes her
injuries would have been much worse if Molly hadn't come to her defense
and attacked her attacker.
"She went into high alert then and she really started going after him
and started biting and barking and everything else," Howell said.
Between her screams and Molly's bites, she said her attacked ran off,
leaving behind a couple of fingerprints for Bartow County Sheriff
investigators.
Howell said everything happened so quickly that she didn't get a good
look at the man, who she described as a white male, at least 5 foot 8
inches tall, wearing a long sleeved black shirt and blue jeans.
Her attacker is still on the loose and she's wracked by nightmares,
but she has a new appreciation for her little, 3-year-old terrier.
"Molly's always been my baby, but now she's even more," Howell added.