Whitney Bond is recovering after a dog bit her face. But authorities say there is nothing they can do about removing the dog.

AUSTIN, Texas — Seven-year-old Whitney Bond is not like most children.

She won't play outside anymore.

"[She] has some nightmares. Both my girls haven't wanted to go outside and play in the cul-de-sac as long as they know that dog is still there. They don't want to be out there," Erica Bond, Whitney's mother, said.

Her daughters haven't wanted to play outside since Christmas Day -- the day Whitney was attacked by a neighbor's dog in the Georgetown Rancho Sienna neighborhood.

"It was terrifying," Whitney's father, Alex, said.

He was there when it happened.

The father of two recalled going outside and talking to a neighbor at the neighbor's home. His daughters followed him.

They began playing with the neighbor's daughter.

It wasn't long after, Alex said, that the dog attacked Whitney.

"The dog growled at her and jumped up and bit her," Alex said.

"Whitney got hit so hard in the face that she threw up in the car, and she ended up having a concussion and a goose bump on her head," Erica said. "It ripped the bridge of her nose open, and it had teeth drag marks down her face, down her nose and it hit her mouth so hard that it knocked her top two teeth in."

The first grader ended up with several internal and external stitches.

She couldn't eat for days -- not to mention the mental and emotional scars for both her and her sister.

The hospital notified authorities.

"The incident is tragic," Commander Steve Deaton, with the Williamson County Sheriff's Office, said.

But he said despite the serious injuries Whitney sustained, nothing will happen to the dog that attacked her.

"When a family's pet is inside its own home and a child is inside the home of where that pet lives and is bit, then the code says you cannot deem the creature a dangerous animal," Commander Deaton said.

Therefore, authorities cannot remove the dog.

It would be a different story if the attack happened on public property.

KVUE's Jenni Lee tried to get a comment from the dog's owners, but an unidentified woman closed the door in her face.

"We are a very heavily populated neighborhood full of children," Erica said.

The Bonds are warning as many of their Rancho Sienna neighbors as possible.

With an elementary school nearby, they said they don't want to see another attack like this happen.