On Saturday at around 4:43 P.M., Fox Lake police officers found the dismembered body of 52-year-old Lisa Urso on the back porch of her home in the Fox Lake area on Ingleside in Northern Illinois.

According to Fox Lake Police Chief Jimmy Lee, she was supposedly meeting up with co-workers on Saturday. After a no-show, they came to check in on her.

An autopsy confirmed that she died from injuries sustained from the attack of her pet French bulldog, named Blue. The coroner's office reported that the attack began inside the home, but Urso managed to make it out to the porch, where she died. Officials are still awaiting toxicology reports.

Dr. Howard Cooper, Lake County's coroner, said that such behavior coming from a smaller dog breed was unexpected, but sometimes people tend to forget how powerful animals can be. He added that the bulldog has a very powerful jaw.

According to Cooper, the bulldog recently adopted by Urso had formerly been trained to fight. He said the attack had been vicious based on the number of bites and scratches on the victim's torso and extremities.

The deadly bulldog, as well as another French bulldog and a border collie, were removed from Uros's residence and are in the custody of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

An investigation is ongoing, and officials say it was unclear if the other two dogs were involved in the attack. According to Chief Lee, there were apparent signs of a struggle inside the home, and that blood was also found on the other French bulldog.

Urso lived with her boyfriend, who unfortunately was not at home at the time of the onslaught. It was reported that the dangerous dog had been taken away last month, after he himself had been attacked by the same bulldog. Apparently, Urso had gone back to animal control to reclaim the dog, which was released to her.

Similar K-9 Mauling Incidents

This isn't the first time a morbid incident like this has occurred. Back in December 2018, 22-year-old Bethany Stephens was mauled to death by her two pitbulls in a remote area in the 2200 block of Manakin Road in Goochland, Virginia.

Police initially thought that she was raped or murdered due to the remote location where she was found. However, after further investigation, police have found that her pet dogs attacked her while she was taking them for a walk. Her injuries suggested that she was mauled to death by her dogs.

Similarly, in 2019, a 29-year-old pregnant woman named Elisa Pilarski was mauled to death by a pack of hunting dogs in Retz forest, approximately 50 miles north-east of Paris. She was out for a walk in the woods when she called her husband to tell him she was worried that a pack of dogs might attack her. Moments later, when her husband rushed to the scene, he found her lifeless body covered in bites and some of her clothes torn away.

Why Do Dogs Attack Their Owners?

Experts say that dogs just don't attack their owners simply because they've gone mad. They say that there is always a trigger. The motivation behind attacks could be fear or pain, specialists say.

Sean Wensley, the Senior Veterinary Surgeon at the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals, also says that dogs can be aggressive at times when they feel threatened.

Animal specialists speculate that one of the possible reasons why the woman in Virginia was attacked by her own dogs is that they sensed "prey" such as a squirrel or rabbit and decided to go after it.

There was a possibility that she interfered or tried to stop the dogs while they were going after the prey. This, they believe, might have caused the dogs to redirect their aggression towards her and attacked her instead.