This story was updated Friday, Aug. 7.
As of Friday, the Prairie Village Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance via Facebook to identify the people in the photo below, in connection to the off-leash dog attack on Sunday, Aug. 2, that left another dog dead.
Anyone who can help identify the people in the photo are encouraged to reach out to the police department at (913) 642-5151.
The original story continues below:
A Prairie Village family is asking for their neighbors’ help in identifying a dog and its owner after an off-leash attack left their beloved Yorkshire terrier, Sawyer, dead.
The incident occurred Sunday evening, when Eric Laudermilk and his daughter, Harlan, 7, took their two family dogs for a walk after grilling at home.
Eric was walking their Bernedoodle, Barry, while Harlan had Sawyer, a 10-year-old Yorkie terrier. Both dogs were on leashes. Eric’s wife, Laura, stayed behind to put their 3-year-old son to bed.
Laudermilk says they were approaching a pedestrian walkway over a drainage canal at 74th Street and Village Drive, about six doors down from their house, when he noticed another dog acting aggressively.
That dog, which Laudermilk describes as a black Boxer mix possibly weighing about 30 pounds, was with a group of three people and a second dog.
Laudermilk said he steered his dogs and Harlan away from the group, hoping to get across the walkway and continue to Porter Park, but the other dog got loose.
It happened in a flash, Laudermilk said.
“As soon as we’re approaching the pedestrian bridge, this dog just … darted across, and before I could do anything, he basically had [Sawyer] in his mouth,” Laudermilk said in a phone interview Wednesday.
Laudermilk said he was stunned as it happened. He had to keep hold of his Bernedoodle so it wouldn’t attack the other dog, while also trying to keep his daughter out of the fray.
Eventually, he got Sawyer away from the other dog. His priority in that moment, he recalls, was to get away from the dog.
“I grabbed Sawyer, and he was crying, so I set him down,” he said. “We got across the pedestrian bridge, and Sawyer just collapsed.”
Laudermilk said a man in the group, who he presumed to be the other dog’s owner, came over, grabbed the dog and lay on it with his full body weight in a seeming effort to restrain it, a detail that “stuck” with Laudermilk.
After realizing Sawyer needed immediate attention, Laudermilk said he and Harlan, both still rattled, turned back to go home.
“And I looked up to find these people, and they were gone,” he said.
Sawyer suffered serious injuries
Laudermilk said they took Sawyer to a veterinarian clinic near 119th and College Boulevard in Overland Park on Sunday night.
The vets there, he said, determined that the 3-pound Sawyer had suffered four puncture wounds, broken ribs and a broken vertebra, all from what appears to have been a single bite.
They said Sawyer was in “rough shape,” and they didn’t know if he was going to make it.
Laudermilk needed to take Sawyer to a clinic that had imaging, so on Monday, they took him to the University of Missouri Veterinary Health Center in Columbia, Missouri.
There, Laudermilk said, they found a bruised liver, a displaced kidney and a punctured lung.
Eventually, the doctors there determined Sawyer wouldn’t be able to recover and he died on Wednesday.
A plea for neighbors’ help
The Laudermilks moved to Prairie Village just two months ago from the Dallas area.
Both Eric and his wife, Laura, an ER doctor, got jobs in the Kansas City area.
Laura is from Missouri, and they have family, including Laura’s sister, Kristyn Craigmiles, who live nearby.
It was Craigmiles who alerted the broader community to the attack on NextDoor earlier this week, posting a plea for help.
“If you live near 74th Street & Village Drive, please check your Ring [camera], Nest, or other security camera footage from Sunday around 8:45 p.m. Even the smallest detail can help,” Craigmiles wrote.
Craigmiles also is distributing a flyer with information about where the attack occurred and the description of the dog that Eric remembered.
Prairie Village Police also looking for owner
Laura called Prairie Village Police’s Animal Control unit on Sunday night and left a voice message detailing the attack.
Capt. Josh Putthoff, a Prairie Village Police spokesperson, said the department’s animal control unit is currently investigating the incident.
He confirmed they are working with the same description of the other dog — a black possibly Boxer mix, weighing 25-30 pounds — that Eric Laudermilk gave.
“At this time, the dog and owner have not been located, and this incident remains an active investigation,” Putthoff said in an email Thursday.
Dog bites have been a hot-button issue in Prairie Village before.
Just last year, a pit bull was euthanized after it bit an infant inside a home very near where Sunday’s attack occurred, critically injuring the infant.
That briefly renewed a community discussion over Prairie Village’s decision in 2020 to lift the city’s pitbull ban.
In the years since the ban was lifted, Prairie Village Police recorded a total of 101 dog bites in the city, roughly 20 per year, accounting for incidents in which both humans and other dogs were bitten.
Laudermilks still in pain but encouraged by community support
Eric Laudermilk’s voice shook frequently as he spoke over the phone to the Post on Wednesday.
He recalled that Laura got Sawyer right around the time that she and Eric started dating. Sawyer was part of the family and had been there for major milestones: their marriage, the births of their two children, their move to Kansas.
Though they hadn’t been in Prairie Village that long, it had already become routine to take Sawyer and Barry for a walk to Porter Park.
He said he’s heard from several of his still-new neighbors this week, who have reached out in support.
“They say, ‘This isn’t really what this area is like. Our neighborhood isn’t like this,'” he said.
Now, the Laudermilks want to make sure something like this doesn’t happen to anyone else.
Eric said he keeps thinking about his daughter, Harlan, who witnessed the attack and was so close to the other dog as it went after Sawyer. What if it had gone after her instead?
That’s why he wants the dog and its owner found.
“There are kids that run all around all over this neighborhood. A dog like that can do a lot of damage to anyone, really. I lost an animal out of this, and I’m lucky it wasn’t my daughter,” he said.
