A 9-year-old blue heeler dog named Dog was stabbed by an unknown assailant late Saturday night in his front yard in Tooele.

Pam Olson, Dog’s owner, said she routinely takes her two dogs outside around 10 p.m. before turning in for the evening, but as she was coming down her front steps that night she heard Dog let out a yelp and run back toward the house. Dog was covered in blood, which was oozing from what Olson said was a “gaping wound” in his chest.

“It looked like a murder scene,” said Olson.

Olson ran into the front yard of her Seventh Street home, but couldn’t see anyone. She told two teenage boys who lived next door and were out playing basketball that Dog had just been stabbed. The boys told Olson that around the time Dog had yelped, a man and woman had passed by Olson’s home.

After wrapping Dog in a towel, Olson called the police and her brother and sister-in-law, Bob and Luann Olson. After talking to police, Bob and Pam rushed Dog to the vet while Luann stayed to clean up.

“It took me two hours to clean up all of the blood,” Luann said.

The veterinarian who treated Dog told Pam that he had sustained a 1/2 by 1 1/2 inch wound to his left lower thorax region — which could only have been inflicted by a knife, according to the police report.

“They just missed a lung,” Pam said.

Dog had surgery Sunday and is now resting at home.

Because Pam said her dogs were out of her sight for only a moment, she is still baffled about how the stabbing could have occurred so suddenly.

“My neighbors said the dogs didn’t go after or chase anyone,” Pam said. “I don’t know if it was just a guy out looking for trouble, an animal-hater, or what.”

Lt. Paul Wimmer of the Tooele City Police Department said animal cruelty cases — especially involving purposefully harming an animal — aren’t something police respond to often.

“We get the occasional case, but it’s not something that we go out frequently on,” Wimmer said. “Most of our cruelty issues are people not taking care of their pets — leaving them out in the sun, in cars, not feeding them. Those are more common than these overt acts of abuse.”

A bill that was passed during this year’s legislative session makes it a third-degree felony to intentionally or knowingly torture a companion animal — meaning a domestic dog or cat.

However, animal rights activists like Marci Wicks, director of Tooele Animal Outreach, said the new law may not be enough.

“It ups it a little bit, but not as much as we would like it to be,” said Wicks. “People who abuse animals are eventually going to victimize people who are weaker than them.”

Pam said in the past five years that she has lived in her current home she has never once had any issues with her dogs.

“They always keep to the yard and I’m always out there with them,” she said.

Now however her habits have changed slightly.

“I have been putting the dogs on a leash now and walking with them,” Pam said. “You just never know what could happen.”

jamieb@tooeletranscript.com