When three Oakland County dog shelter workers couldn’t dislodge a raging pit bull mauling the kennel supervisor, a police officer shot the dog in the head, saving the supervisor’s life, officials said Friday.

The pit bull, with a history of biting family members in Troy, fell to the floor and shelter personnel pulled Shelley Grey to safety last month, as shown on a dramatic video, before she was rushed off in an ambulance. Yet, the 80-pound dog — after being shot “at point-blank range, between the eyes,” seemingly rose from the dead, Oakland County spokesman Bill Mullan said.

As the video shows, when the officer returned to the special hallway where six kennels house dangerous dogs, the pit bull had regained consciousness and now posed a fresh threat.

“The officer saw it was now a wounded animal and the possible threat played through his mind, so he immediately ended its suffering” with a second shot that was fatal, Mullan said. Still, “the first shot was effective because it got this dog off Shelley; it saved her life,” he said.

That account was the dramatic core of a story told Friday by Oakland County officials, following up initial reports last month of the Dec. 12 attack. It occurred inside a “quarantine kennel” where cages hold dangerous dogs, and where the pit bull had been caged after Troy police responded to a report that 4-year-old Roscoe had attacked an adult and two children of the family that raised him as a puppy.

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Officials said the attack prompted them to add safety equipment and new procedures “to make sure this kind of incident never happens here again,” said Bob Gatt, manager of Oakland County Animal Control.

The incident "traumatized everyone here and we're still dealing with that," Gatt said, adding: "This is the first time anything of this magnitude has happened here, to my knowledge."

Grey, 52, the injured supervisor, is a 25-year veteran of animal control and care, still recovering at home from serious injuries to her right arm and shoulder as well as to her left hand and one leg, Gatt said. She suffered a broken left finger as well as muscle damage to her right forearm, both requiring surgery, according to a county news release. Will she ever come back to work?

“I sure as heck hope so,” Gatt said.

Since the attack, the shelter has improved training for all staff who enter the facility’s two quarantine kennels, each of which has six cages that individually house “dogs that have bitten people,” Gatt said. Cages are now doubled locked.

Those who enter must have attached to their clothing “an audible alert device” that summons help instantly; and now hanging nearby for fast access are emergency protective devices, including clear plastic shields, dog snares for capturing a loose dog from a safe distance, and break sticks used to force open the jaw of a biting dog, Gatt said.

“But I’ve seen pit bulls bite and I don’t think those would be able to open some dogs’ jaws,” he said. Pit bulls can make gentle family pets, but any dog that shows a tendency to bite “for no apparent reason, you’re best bringing it to us — that dog is going to hurt someone,” he said.

Officials did not identify the Troy family that owned Roscoe. They said that, even after the dog seriously bit two children and their mother, the family refused to give permission to the county to euthanize their pet.

“What we heard is that the mom was on the phone and they said the dog bit her because she was talking too loudly,” and then it turned on her two children, Gatt said. The woman drove herself to Henry Ford Hospital in Troy, after which EMS transported her children to Troy Beaumont Hospital, according to a police report.

Responding officers found the pit bull “loose outside the residence,” the report said. They caught the dog using a snare device, holding it in the home's basement until a county officer arrived to take the dog to the Oakland County shelter in Pontiac.

A man living at the house — not married to the children's mother, according to the police report — told officers who came to the house that the dog had “been aggressive before in the past and has bitten people/family members,” according to a police report.

The following day, Roscoe bit an Oakland County animal control officer in the back and leg as the officer tried to remove the dog’s leash inside the shelter’s quarantine kennel in Pontiac, according to the county’s news release. Yet, when shelter staff visited the man the next day and asked whether the county could get custody of the dog, as a step toward euthanizing it, the man refused, according to the release. Later, by telephone, the mother who’d been bitten also declined to surrender ownership of the dog to the county, the release said.

When the dog attacked on Dec. 12, “we were just about to go to court to get custody of this dog, and we’re quite sure the court would’ve granted it,” Gatt said.

Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com