(Beth Clifton collage)
Pit bull rescuer in North Carolina and almost-three-year-old in Oregon
CLINTON, North Carolina; DUFUR, Oregon––Pit bull rescuer and longtime Village Dental Clinic dental assistant Barbara Hunter Brewington, 38, of Bonnetville, North Carolina, on November 23, 2025 became simultaneously the 75th person killed by dogs in the U.S. during 2025, tying the record 2024 toll, and the 58th U.S. pit bull fatality, breaking the 2023 U.S. record for deaths by pit bull.
That data was not included in accounts of Brewington’s death posted by media as far away as Australia and as large as People magazine.
Tried to break up fight between rescued pit bull & smaller dog
But People reporter Christine Pelisek did mention on December 2, 2025, as WNCN television reporter Shanila Kabir had on November 24, 2025, that according to Sampson County sheriff Jimmy Thornton, “From all indications, she had another pet, a much smaller pet, and she was trying to separate the two that were fighting, and the bigger of the two dogs turned on her and attacked her.”
Added Kabir, “Her family said Barbara [Brewington] was one of the few neighbors who cared for a stray dog that roamed through the woods near their home on Peavine Road, and it was that dog that attacked and killed her.”
While Pelisek and many others for more than a week recycled information from Kabir’s first report, Beth Clifton of ANIMALS 24-7 found Barbara Hunter Brewington’s postings in her effort to find the owner of the pit bull who eventually killed her.
Brewington left her husband of nine years and three children.
As Kabir also mentioned, Brewington’s death was “the second fatal dog attack reported over five days in North Carolina,” following the unwitnessed November 18, 2025 pack attack death of Michael Bodenheimer outside his home in Thomasville.
Aryson Lee Page
Brewington became the unfortunate double dog attack and pit bull attack record-setter due to the belated disclosure of the October 14, 2025 pit bull attack death of Aryson Lee Page, called “Al” by family, in Dufur, Oregon.
Aryson Lee Page was to have turned three years old on December 3, 2025.
His death “is still under investigation,” reported Martin Gibson for the Columbia Gorge News, “after a pit bull killed him in a Dufur park.”
Dufur City Park, on the south side of town, is the only park in Dufur, population just over 600, but it is just across Fifteenmile Creek from the Dufur RV Park.
Which park Gibson meant is unclear, as are the other circumstances of the attack.
“The dog was put down”
“With the owner’s help, the dog was put down. It is not known why the pit bull attacked the child,” Gibson continued, oblivious to the reality that a pit does not need a reason other than the presence of another living being––or in one 1986 Boulder, Colorado case, a life-sized concrete pig––to detonate.
“It’s fair to say there’s no belief that anybody deliberately caused any of this to happen,” Wasco County district attorney Kara Davis told Gibson, shedding no further light on the matter.
Julia Renee Page, mother of Ayson Lee Page, along with other family members, grieved his death on social media almost immediately, but without mentioning that a pit bull, or even a dog, was responsible.
Posted Christina Castellanos, of The Dalles, the Wasco County seat, 20 miles north of Dufur, “Baby Al was such a bright light in everyone’s lives. That baby boy touched every person who met him. He was a loving and kind, but energetic and busy little boy. He truly lit up any room and was always the life of the party.”
Meanwhile in Ohio
In Ohio, meanwhile, state law from 1987 until 2012 defined pit bulls as “inherently vicious,” therefore requiring pit bull owners to keep their pit bulls behind secure fences, muzzled in public, and insured against liability.
The Ohio law withstood several court challenges, but was undone by the combined efforts of Toledo Blade publisher John Robinson Block, the Best Friends Animal Society, the pit bull advocacy group Animal Farm Foundation, and then-Ohio County Dog Wardens Association president Mark Kumpf.
Since then, Ohio has experienced 25 dog attack fatalities, 21 of them by pit bull, and at least 1,700 disfiguring pit bull attacks.
Avery Russell
Among the disfigured victims were 11-year-old Avery Russell, of Reynoldsburg, and her cousin Jessica Henry, on June 11, 2023, when invited to the home of a woman named Stephanie Ayers for a play date. Ayers left after their arrival to run an errand, leaving the girls in the yard.
Ayers’ two pit bulls, left in the house, mauled both girls when Avery Russell tried to use the bathroom, losing both ears and spending a week in a coma. Jessica Henry, coming to her rescue, was bitten in the neck, arms, ears, and torso.
One of the pit bulls had previously injured two other children, but Franklin County municipal court judge Mary Kay Fenlon sentenced Ayers to serve only four days in jail and pay a fine of just $450, plus court costs.
“Avery’s Law”
Responding to that and the many other Ohio pit bull attacks, Ohio state house members Kevin Miller (R-Newark) and Meredith Lawson-Rowe (D-Reynoldsburg), introduced “Avery’s Law,” HB 247.
Passed by the Ohio house on June 18, 2025 and passed unanimously by the Ohio senate on November 19, 2024, “Avery’s Law” is now before Ohio governor Mike DeWine, awaiting his signature to take effect.
“Avery’s Law,” as summarized by Ava Boldizar of WCMH television news in Columbus, the state capital, “would require courts to order the euthanasia of dogs who seriously injure or kill someone in an unprovoked attack. Dogs who hurt an intruder or someone abusing them would be exempt.
Not just “one free bite,” but “one free death”
“The state’s current law only mandates euthanasia after a dog kills a second person,” Boldizar noted.
“The measure would also allow dog wardens to immediately seize dogs they have reason to believe have inflicted serious injuries or death on a human,” Boldizar continued.
“Currently,” under the state dog law as weakened in 2012, “they can only do so if the animal has previously been designated as a vicious or dangerous dog.
“The legislation would require courts to hold a hearing within 10 days of the seizure, during which a judge would determine next steps for the animal.”
Insurance requirement
Owners of dogs designated dangerous or vicious dogs, Boldizar explained, “would be required to purchase $100,000 in liability insurance; to pay an annual registration fee of $100 – double the current amount; would be required to keep dogs in a yard with a locked fence “’hat is sufficiently constructed to prevent escape’ when outdoors; would be required to keep their dogs locked up when an invitee is on their property,” and would be subject to “multiple criminal penalties” if found to have failed to “prevent their pets from endangering or attacking someone.”
“Throughout the bill’s five hearings,” Boldizar mentioned, “no one spoke out against it. The measure drew support from more than a dozen individuals, including representatives of the Ohio County Dog Warden Association,” apparently trying to redeem itself post-Kumpf, the American Kennel Club, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.”
Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council
The Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council is also “looking to strengthen its ordinance on dangerous dogs,” Hannah Pedeferri of MTN News reported on November 26, 2025, “after a brutal attack on a tribal member prompted renewed discussions about community safety.
Teela Atwood, 36, pregnant, of Lame Deer, “was brutally attacked by nearly a dozen dogs early this week on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation,” Pedeferri recounted, “leaving her with severe injuries that required her to be life-flighted to Billings for treatment.”
Neighbor Lance Littlebird, who “witnessed the attack on Teela Atwood and stepped to the rescue after she had been dragged into a ditch by the pack of dogs,” told Pedeferri that, “They were all just literally going for the kill on her.”
Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council representative Robert Simpson raised the question as to whether the dogs who attacked Atwood were actually “rez dogs,” or free-roaming unowned dogs who historically have rarely been dangerous, or were owned by someone who deliberately kept vicious dogs, or were perhaps dumped on the reservation by a non-resident trying to get rid of them.
(Daniel Leventhal photo)
“In 2021,” Pedeferri recalled “a Lame Deer man, Duke Little Whirlwind, was killed in a similar incident involving a pack of dogs.”
(See Heather Pingel death protecting child echoes the Daxton Borchardt case and Fatal dog attacks on Native American / 1st Nations land, 1995-present.)
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