THOMASVILLE — A little Coolidge girl lost her best friend on Wednesday.

The Rottweiler Hanna Cannon fed with a bottle when the canine was the only puppy in its litter to survive was to go to a new home Wednesday. The 9-year-old girl no longer wants the dog, Trixie, around.

“That was her best friend,” said Jack Cannon, Hanna’s father.

Something happened to the child Saturday, April 5, that changed the way she feels about dogs. The incident is causing other emotional repercussions.

Hanna was in the back yard of her Coolidge neighbor’s house when she was attacked by a border collie. She had gone next door where others had gathered around where a golf cart that had bogged down.

When the cart was free, Hanna and others were walking away. The girl was swinging her arms when the dog attacked, said her mother, Diane Cannon.

“She did not try to pet the dog,” Mrs. Cannon said.

Some 163 stitches were required at the Archbold Memorial Hospital emergency room to close bite wounds. One of the child’s teeth was chipped and another loosened during the attack.

“She had stitches on the inside and out,” the mother said.

Mrs. Cannon said holes left by the dog’s teeth are in her daughter’s right eyebrow and the top of her left arm. A long, deep, jagged gash from the attack stretches along the girl’s right cheek.

“She reached up with her left arm, she said, to cover her face,” the girl’s mother said.

Lt. Melissa Hart, of the Thomasville-Thomas County Humane Society animal control division, said the child was “flopping” her arms when the attack occurred.

The dog’s owner had the option of putting the border collie in quarantine at her personal veterinarian’s or at the humane society animal shelter. The owner chose her Moultrie veterinarian. After 10 days, the dog was released and has returned home.

“It has a clean bill of health,” Hart said.

The animal control officer said she considers the attack provoked by the child.