House candidate Piwowarczyk attacked by dogs while knocking on door | Washington Co. News

RICHFIELD – Jim Piwowarczyk was out on the road over the weekend going door to door to talk to voters about his 98th District primary campaign against Don Pridemore. But what started out as a normal day Saturday changed abruptly when Piwowarczyk was attacked by two German shepherds.

“It could have been a lot worse. I’m OK, I’m on the mend, but I’m still out there knocking on doors,” Piwowarczyk said. “We were out (Sunday) and we were out (Monday) and we’re still knocking on doors.”

On Saturday, Piwowarczyk was out knocking on doors in Richfield with his daughter Jenna and his girlfriend and partner in Wisconsin Right Now, Jessica McBride. Everything seemed fine at one of the homes as he surveyed the yard and approached the door until suddenly two black German Shepherds came off the porch and headed straight toward him.

“I knew at that point I had no choice. If I had tried to turn around and run away, they would have just chased after me and bitten me,” he said.

Piwowarczyk, who owns a German Shepherd, said his first reaction was to stop and try to calm the two dogs with a gentle voice, but that didn’t stop them from circling him and continuing to growl.

“Immediately one of them circled me and bit me in the hamstring and then it started. It was like madness,” said Piwowarczyk. “I mean, they were immediately barking and growling and trying to snap at me and bite me.”

“You might be able to fend off one dog, but when you have two dogs, you know that if you talk to one dog, the other will run in circles behind you, and I never really thought about that scenario. When you have two dogs, there’s always a dog after you that’s going to bite you no matter what you do.”

Piwowarczyk then began yelling for help toward the house, trying to get the attention of the homeowners – or anyone for that matter – to get help.

However, since no one reacted immediately, he decided to leave the property backwards.

“I had to go through a line of trees to get to a road, hoping that maybe there was an electric fence and they were wearing electric collars and not going on the road,” Piwowarczyk said. “But when I did that … I realized they were continuing to circle me and attack me, and that wasn’t going to work.”

At this point, two teenagers left the house and tried to get the dogs under control.

“At that point, I decided to run through the open garage door because I just wanted to get into the house,” Piwowarczyk said. “At that point, I would have jumped in a car, anything, just to get away from those dogs.”

Once in the garage, Piwowarczyk grabbed a chair while the two boys continued to try to get the dogs under control.

“I felt a dog was after me and chasing me, so I grabbed a chair, turned around and was able to fight him off and defend myself from another attack,” Piwowarczyk said. “And then the guys were able to get the dogs under control and get them out of there.”

The homeowners then came to the garage, where they helped Piwowarczyk and examined his injuries.

“(The dog’s owners) showed great compassion and offered to pay for my medical costs,” Piwowarczyk said. Piwowarczyk suffered bites in one of his thigh muscles and in his right hand, which bled profusely.

He then called his daughter and McBride, but they didn’t answer because they were busy knocking on doors, so Piwowarczyk told the homeowners to call an ambulance.

“I didn’t know if my finger was torn off, I didn’t know how bad it was,” Piwowarczyk said.

An ambulance and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office arrived and examined Piwowarczyk, followed by McBride and Piwowarczyk’s daughter, who then took him to the emergency room.

Piwowarczyk received eight stitches on his right middle finger and several more on the side of his hand. The bites on his legs were treated with a cream and left open so that any bacteria from the dogs’ mouths could be carried away by the blood coming out of the wounds.

Piwowarczyk said he has also received messages of condolence from numerous candidates and politicians since the attack. All said such attacks by dogs or other pets are not only rare, but have not occurred in recent decades.

“They say, ‘Listen, we’ve been doing this for 30 years and nothing like this has ever happened,'” Piwowarczyk said. “I’ve heard of a few candidates who have lost over the years, but nothing like this has ever happened. So I look at it as something that will probably never happen again.”

However, Piwowarczyk said that if he or a volunteer from his campaign finds himself in a similar situation, he will provide them with pepper spray and train the volunteers in its use.

He added that all candidates and anyone who goes door-to-door for work should carry some form of protection, preferably pepper spray, as you never know what is on the other side of the door.

“There are a lot of people going door to door. There are contractors, Amazon drivers who aren’t from the area, UPS drivers, kids going to doors and maybe selling Girl Scout cookies, and campaign and political bouncers,” Piwowarczyk said. “I think that’s something I want to make sure everyone is thinking about, and I really encourage anyone going door to door to carry something for protection, preferably pepper spray.”

Piwowarczyk added that ultimately he was grateful that the attack happened to him and not his daughter or another campaign volunteer.

“I’m a big guy… I was able to stand and fight them off,” Piwowarczyk said. “If they had caught my 19-year-old daughter when I was outside with her, I would never have forgiven myself if she had been attacked.”