A family of three was attacked and injured by a pit bull in their Greenfield Township home on Friday morning, July 5.

According to Greenfield Township police, William Cox, 69, and his wife, Connie, 67, were having a discussion in their Connie Drive home in Claysburg, when the 4-year-old male pit bull attacked the couple.

The dog latched onto William and when his wife tried to get the dog off him, she was bitten in the face.

The couple’s son, Allen Cox, was attempting to get the dog away from his parents when the dog turned on him, causing numerous injuries, including a nearly severed right arm.

William Cox was able to shoot the dog before responders got to the home. Both he and his son underwent emergency surgery on Friday at UPMC Altoona.

This is the second violent pit bull attack in the area in the last year and a half.

On May 24, 2018, a 6-year-old boy was attacked and killed in Lakemont by the family pit bull.

According to reports, the dog had been part of the family for several years when it suddenly attacked and mauled the boy. The boy’s father stabbed the dog several times in order to get it to release his son, but it was too late, and the boy died of his injuries.

Pit bulls have become a controversial breed as they have been labeled a “dangerous breed,” prompting some cities across the country to ban them entirely.

In Kentucky, 11 cities have banned the breed while 30 cities in Arkansas have outlawed them. Ohio has 24 cities with full pit bull bans and 55 that have officially labeled them as “vicious.” Six Pennsylvania municipalities have ordinances restricting pit bulls.

The breed has even gotten the attention of three branches of the United States military. In 2009, the Army and Marine Corps banned them and other “dangerous dog breeds” from privatized housing both at home and abroad. The Air Force enacted a similar policy in 2012.

According to a study by dogsbite.org, there were 36 dog bite-related deaths in the United States in 2018. Pit bulls were responsible for 26 of those deaths.

Just this past week, pit bull attacks killed one man and injured several others across the country.

A 45-year old Florida man was attacked and killed by a pack of the dogs as he walked through the woods in Lake Placid, while a 4-year-old girl was hospitalized in Topeka, Kan., after being bitten on the face by a pit bull.

An Orange County, Texas, man was hospitalized with lacerations to his face, chest, arm and leg after being attacked by a pit bull on July 6.

Dogsbite.org reports that during the 14-year period between 2005 and 2018, 311 Americans were killed from a pit bill attack, 264 more than the second breed most responsible, rottweilers, which killed 47 in the same time span.