A 12-year-old Barrie girl is recovering after being bitten by a dog while she was out for a run after school on Wednesday.

It all happened so quickly that the girl didn't get any information from the dog's owner, and now the search is on to find the woman.

The large, black, curly-haired dog was being walked on a leash by its owner on Warnica Road in the city's south end just before 5 p.m.

"I went on the grass to get out of the way, and it just jerked its head over, and it just bit me out of nowhere."

The young girl says the woman may not have even realized what took place. "She just said, 'I'm sorry' and then kept walking like nothing happened."

But now, the concern is real, says Tanya Fehr with the Rabies Prevention and Control Program. "If we can't find the animal we don't know its history, we don't know if it was vaccinated, and we will treat all potential exposures as a real threat since rabies is a fatal disease." While Fehr says she doesn't want to fear-monger, she says it's crucial for them to locate the dog to rule out the threat.

The girl's mom, Jennifer Case, says she doesn't blame the dog's owner, choosing to believe she had no idea what her dog had done. But she's worried about her daughter. "The wounds are really deep. She's going to have scars," she says. "I'm not sure how she made it home from Warnica to our house. I'm amazed she made it home."

The girl has a deep puncture wound on her left buttock and another closer to her leg. "It was gushing blood," she describes.

"We went straight to RVH," her mom says. "They gave her heavy-duty antibiotics."

Case is still shaken by the incident and is desperately appealing to the dog's owner to come forward. "There're no hard feelings. We just want to know that the dog's shots are up to date."

Without finding the animal, the injured girl will have to undergo a series of needles to help protect her from the potentially deadly disease.

Even though precautions must be taken, Fehr says the health unit hasn't had a positive case of terrestrial case of rabies since 2006.