Two teenage girls are recovering from bites after being attacked by three dogs in Freeland Clinton this past week.

Sarah Young, 15, of Freeland and her friend visiting from Seattle were walking to Young’s home along Harding Avenue at dusk on Tuesday, Aug. 3, when the attack occurred, her father Joseph Young said Tuesday.

He said Sarah was bitten on her hand, and her friend was bitten on the calf of her leg. Sarah was taken to Whidbey General Hospital in Coupeville, and her friend received treatment after returning home to Seattle.

Joseph Young said the dogs, two Boxers and a Labrador retriever belonging to a neighbor about two houses down the street, rushed the girls as they were walking home.

Sarah’s friend was bitten first, but managed to escape when the dogs took after Sarah as she tried to run home, he said.

“I heard a blood-curdling scream and ran out the door,” Young said. “I never heard my daughter scream like that. She was trying to defend herself with her flip-flops.”

Young said he ran out the door shouting, but before he could get to Sarah, their family dog, Breezy, a 4-year-old Lab mix, ran around the house and straight for the pack of attacking dogs.

“Breezy ran barking right into the middle of them,” Young said. “That broke their concentration. I never saw her move so fast. She’s the real hero in all this.”

Young said he and Sarah ran into their house and slammed the door as the dogs charged again, and he called the Island County Sheriff’s Office and the county’s Animal Control.

He said Sarah’s hand was bleeding from two puncture wounds, which were later treated at the hospital.

He said the trio of dogs had escaped before from their yard, supposedly protected by an invisible electric fence. He said Animal Control told him the dogs had had their shots, and as of Tuesday the dogs were still in the neighborhood.

He said both bites came from the same Boxer, which he described as the most aggressive of the three.

Young said Sarah and her friend were healing nicely from their wounds, and that both received tetanus shots.

He said the owners of the dogs are building a fence, but so far most of the property is still ringed by the electric underground wire.

“I’m still upset about this,” Young said. “Those dogs can still get out. We can’t walk down the road.”

County Animal Control Officer Carol Barnes couldn’t be reached for comment by press time.