A 22-year-old man is facing charges after a dog was repeatedly bitten in the middle of a downtown street in Pembroke, Ont., about 150 kilometres northwest of Ottawa last month.

Witness Tanner Comeau, 18, said he saw something strange at the intersection of Pembroke Street West and Christie Street when driving home with a friend to nearby Petawawa at about 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 26.

"We drove by it and it was in the middle of the intersection. It was a guy wrapped around a dog, choking it, biting it. It was messed up," Comeau told CBC News the next day.

"We pulled over and the guy was in his boxers. We ran up to him, screaming at him. Our first priority was to go and hit him … but then we decided to call the cops because he was eating the dog and there was blood all over the place and the dog was squealing. It was just really, really disturbing."

The man was apprehended under the Mental Health Act and taken to hospital, Pembroke police said at the time.

The resident of Pembroke is charged with keeping a prohibited animal, failing to license a prohibited animal and failing to inoculate the animal for rabies, all under the Provincial Offences Act.

No Criminal Code charges being laid

Pembroke police are not laying criminal charges in connection with the attack, said Const. Dillon Gerundin.

Streets, a female Staffordshire terrier, is on her way to a pit bull rescue shelter in Vancouver after being attacked and injured by a man in Pembroke last month. (Photo courtesy Bullies In Need)

The injured dog is a female Staffordshire terrier, a type of pit bull. Under the Dog Owner's Liability Act, it is illegal to own a pit bull unless the dog was already under the owner's care before amendments to the act were made in 2005.

"Both [injured] areas healed quite well," said animal control officer Michael Street.

The dog had two young puppies and was owned by the accused at the time of the attack, said Michael Street, an animal control officer in Pembroke. The puppies were not injured when they were taken in by animal control after the attack.

By phone Wednesday, Street said the female and her two puppies were later taken in by Bullies In Need, a pit bull dog rescue group in Ottawa. The female has been renamed Streets, and the two pups are now called Hollywood Boulevard and Rodeo Drive.

All three dogs are now on their way to HugABull, another pit bull rescue shelter, in Vancouver.